BV  4501  .B734  1910 
Brierley,  Jonathan,  1843- 

1914. 
Life  and  the  ideal 


J 


)i 


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LIFE    AND    THE    IDEAL 


LIFE    AND    THE 
IDEAL 


BY 

J.    BRIERLEY 

AUTHOR    OF 
ASPECTS    OF    THE    SPIRITUAL,"     "SIDELIGHTS    ON    RELIGION,' 
**  OURSELVES    AND     THE    UNIVERSE,"   ETC. 


BOSTON 

THE    PILGRIM    PRESS 

LONDON:     JAMES    CLARKE    &    CO, 

1910 


Author's    Foreword 

These  essays  are  based  on  the  view  that  every 
form  of  life  contains  its  separate  ideal ;  in  other 
words,  that  in  all  departments  of  it  there  is  a  some- 
thing better  than  we  have  yet  seen  or  reached.  And 
they  are  a  search  for  that  ideal.  The  best  thing  about 
our  universe  is  that  it  is  an  unfinished  one  ;  and  that 
we,  in  our  several  positions,  are  called  in  as  co-workers 
in  the  finishing  of  it.  In  business,  in  politics,  in  our 
social  systems  ;  in  religion,  as  it  exists  in  our  forms 
and  behefs,  there  is  a  something  yet  to  be  attained, 
an  eternal  progress  which  we  are  to  help  in  realising. 
We  can  never  do  our  best  work  except  in  fidelity  not 
only  to  what  is,  but  to  what  is  yet  to  be.  The  topics 
discussed  are  various  as  Hfe  is  various,  but  they  will 
be  found  to  be  united  in  this  common  conception. 

London,  1910. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.  THE   QUEST   OF   THE   IDEAL  9 

II.  WORK    AND    THE    IDEAL  1 9 

III.  COMPANIONS   OF   THE   IDEAL  28 

IV.  SIN    AND    THE    IDEAL  37 
V.  FAITH    AND    THE   IDEAL  47 

VI.  INTELLECT  AND    THE    MORAL    IDEAL  56 

VII.  PRAYER    AND    THE    IDEAL  67 

VIII.  PHILOSOPHY   AND    RELIGION  78 

IX.  EVENTS   AND   THE    IDEAL  87 

X.  IDEALS    AND    LIFE-PLANNING  98 

XL  ARISTOCRACY    AND    THE    IDEAL  IO9 

XII.  THE    IDEAL   IN   DEMOCRACY  I18 

XIII.  NATURE   AND    THE   POLITICAL   IDEAL  1 27 

XIV.  OF  HUMAN  GOODNESS  1 36 

XV.  EN  ROUTE  145 

XVI.  THE    IDEAL   IN    SELF -LOSS  1 56 

XVII.  THE    IDEAL   AND    THE  WALL  167 
XVIII.  STIMULANTS  1 76 


Contents 

PAGE 

XIX.      THE    ESTATE   AND   THE    IDEAL  1 85 

XX.      LIFE   AS   TRANSFORMATION  1 94 

XXI.       THE   IDEAL    AS    INDEPENDENCE  203 

XXII.       LAND  AND   PEOPLE  212 

XXIII.  RELIGION    AND  THE    STATE  221 

XXIV.  OUR    POOR    RELATIONS  230 
XXV.       THE  IDEAL   AND    HEALTH  239 

XXVI.      THE   POWERS   OF   DARKNESS  248 

XXVIL      OUR    UNUSED   SELVES  255 

XXVin.       FAILURE   AND    THE    IDEAL  264 

XXIX.      THE   ETHICS   OF   TRADE  272 

XXX.       MOODS   AND   THE   IDEAL  280 


THE    QUEST    OF    THE    IDEAL 

One  of  the  commonest  phrases  in  modern  poHtics  is 
"  the  swing  of  the  pendulum."  It  means  that  a 
Government  loses  by  governing.  It  is  expected  that 
the  party  in  power  will  steadily  diminish  its  popularity 
by  being  in  power.  It  will  use  it  up  as  a  spendthrift 
uses  up  his  capital.  Why  is  that  ?  Is  it  simply 
because  our  administrators,  being  human,  make 
mistakes  ?  Or  that,  in  the  full  glare  of  their  position, 
their  failings,  their  limitations,  come  more  clearly  into 
view  ?  That,  of  course,  is  part  of  the  reason.  But 
it  is  not  the  whole,  nor  the  greatest  part.  The  question 
goes  deeper  than  most  people  imagine.  The  bottom 
reason  lies  in  a  fact  of  human  nature.  It  is  that 
man  believes  always  in  what  is  not  more  than  in  what 
is.  It  is  the  world's  innate  idealism  that  digs  the 
grave  of  Governments.  The  Opposition  is,  for  the 
moment,  the  untried.  They  represent  the  possible. 
And  the  possible  always  overshadows  the  actual, 
because  we  are  never  satisfied  with  the  actual. 

This  fact,  which  forms  so  disturbing  an  element 
in  politics,  goes  vastly  farther  than  politics.  It  is 
the  greatest  thing  in  hfe.  Man  inhabits  two  worlds, 
the  world  of  the  visible  and  present,  and  the  world 


Life  and  the    Ideal 

of  his  dreams.  And  this  ^  dichotomy  of  his  being 
keeps  him  in  perpetual  unrest.  He  is  never  in  a  con- 
dition where  he  cannot  conceive  a  better.  Mephis- 
topheles  promises  Faust  enduring  feUcity  if  he  is 
ever  able  to  say  of  a  given  moment,  "  Verweile  dock  ; 
du  hist  so  schon."  He  is  sure  that  he  will  never  find 
that  moment.  Mme.  de  Chantal's  cry,  "  There  is 
something  in  me  that  has  never  been  satisfied," 
had  more  than  a  personal  reference.  It  is  the  cry 
of  humanity.  It  is  reported  of  R.  L.  Stevenson 
that  when  he  heard  of  Matthew  Arnold's  death,  he 
exclaimed,  *'  Poor  Matthew  !  heaven  will  not  please 
him !  "  We  could  easily  imagine  Arnold's  feeling 
as  our  own.  If  we  carried  with  us  to  heaven  the 
ideaUsing  faculty  which  now  torments  us,  the  remark 
would  be  true  of  us  all. 

Meanwhile,  in  this  world,  our  idealism,  though  an 
element  of  unrest,  is  not  by  any  means  to  be  reckoned 
as  an  argument  for  pessimism.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
our  greatest  asset,  the  finest  thing  we  have.  It  means 
that,  good  as  things  are,  there  is  always  something 
better.  May  we  not  here  say  that  the  divine  scheme  of 
things,  as  an  eternal  progress,  is,  in  this  way,  adum- 
brated in  the  human  mind  ?  That  we  are  not  content : 
is  not  this  a  hint  from  above  that  we  have  no  business 
to  be ;  that  we  are  only  at  the  beginning  ;  that 
we  are  called  in  as  co-workers  in  a  creation  that 
has  unimaginable  fruitions  yet  to  be  disclosed  ? 
A  contented  world  would  be  a  standstill  world,  and 
we  are  not  meant  to  stand  still.  Above  and  bej^ond 
what  we  see  is  the  divine  idea,  towards  which  the 
visible  is  working  ;    and  it  is  our  privilege  to  be  par- 

10 


The  Quest  of  the   Ideal 

takers  in  the  idea,  as  well  as  in  its  present  stage  of 
realisation. 

And  note  what  a  present  happiness  it  is  to  be  sharers 
in  that  idea  !  Possessing  it,  no  Ufe  can  be  called 
merely  sordid.  A  man  may  be  in  the  humblest 
position,  his  work  a  drudgery,  his  habitation  a  hovel. 
But  that  is  not  all  of  him.  For  his  mind  is  not  shut 
up  in  his  shoemaking,  or  in  his  bare  room.  The 
more  monotonous  his  toil  the  freer  is  he  in  his  other 
sphere.  Above  his  mean  surroundings,  floating  like 
glorious  cloud  pictures  in  the  boundless  blue  of  his 
imagination,  he  sees  and  revels  in  the  scenery  of 
that  upper  world.  Tauler,  the  mediaeval  mystic,  in 
one  of  his  sermons,  says  :  "  One  man  can  spin,  another 
can  make  shoes  ;  all  these  are  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
I  tell  you  if  I  were  not  a  priest  I  should  esteem  it 
a  great  gift  that  I  was  able  to  make  shoes,  and  I  would 
try  to  make  them  so  well  as  to  be  a  pattern  to  all." 
He  would  have  made  good  shoes,  we  do  not  doubt ; 
but  his  happiness  would  have  been,  not  simply  in 
turning  out  good  material,  but  in  that,  beyond  the  hand- 
ling of  the  leather,  there  was  open  to  him  the  free  play 
of  his  soul  in  realms  to  which  leather  does  not  reach. 

One  of  those  compensations  that  go  far  towards 
redressing  the  balance  of  Hfe  Ues  in  the  fact  that, 
ordinarily,  the  darker  the  actual,  the  brighter  shines 
the  ideal.  When  all  is  gloom  in  the  lower  story,  the 
upper  chambers  are  often  ablaze  with  light.  The 
splendid  apocalyptic  visions  of  the  later  Judaism 
were  given  when  the  Jewish  political  outlook  was  of  the 
blackest.  The  earthly  kingdom  was  gone,  but  in 
the  mind  of  every  Jew  shone  the  ideas  we  get  in  the 

II 


Life  and  the    Ideal 

Book  of  Enoch,  in  Ezra  vi.,  in  the  apocalypse  of  Baruch, 
and  similar  productions.  Their  mind  revelled  in 
the  thought  of  a  kingdom  safe  from  the  shock  of  Roman 
arms.  And  it  was  safe,  for  the  Roman  could  not 
assault  their  thought.  The  early  Church  lived  on 
a  yet  finer  idealism.  Harassed  by  the  foe,  it  looked 
up,  like  Stephen,  and  saw  the  heavens  opened.  These 
poor  slaves,  these  slum-dwellers  of  Rome  and  Ephesus, 
partook  of  a  hidden  life  which  put  the  pomp  of  emperors 
to  scorn.  How  illuminating  as  to  their  inner  mind  is 
that  word  of  Pionius,  martyred  in  the  Decian  per- 
secution. As  he  was  led  out  to  suffer,  the  Smyrna 
populace  said  to  him :  "  It  is  good  to  live  and  see  this 
light  !  "  ''Yes,"  he  replied,  "  life  is  good,  but  there 
is  a  better  hfe.  Light  is  good  if  it  be  the  true  light. 
All  around  us  is  good  and  fair;  we  do  not  wish  for 
death  or  hate  the  works  of  God.  But  there  is  a  better 
world  in  comparison  with  which  we  despise  this." 
Whether  a  man  quit  Hfe  at  the  stake,  or  in  a  bed 
of  down,  he  will  hardly  find  a  better  spirit  in  leaving 
it  than  that. 

So  far  as  the  history  of  the  world  has  yet  gone,  it 
seems  as  though  a  certain  external  hardship  were 
needful  to  secure  the  vividest  spiritual  joys.  That 
is  the  idea  of  asceticism — which  it  has  worked  to  death. 
But  nature  here  has  preached  a  certain  asceticism. 
She  has  had  always  to  hit  hard  to  strike  sparks  out 
of  us.  It  is  recorded  of  the  early  pilgrims  at  Concord : 
"  The  edge  of  their  appetite  was  greater  towards 
spiritual  duties  at  their  first  coming  in  time  of  want 
than  afterwards."  Methodism's  mightiest  fervours 
and  its  intensest  joys  were  in  the  days  of  its  hardships 

12 


The  Quest  of  the  Ideal 

and  poverty.  The  well-to-do  Wesleyan  manufacturer 
of  to-day  knows  a  thousand  things  and  a  thousand 
pleasures.  What  he  does  not  know  is  the  ecstatic  j  oy 
with  which  his  predecessors,  the  weavers  of  Yorkshire, 
the  fishers  of  Cornwall,  sang  that  triumphant  strain 
of  Wesley — the  apocalypse  of  the  poor  : 

Come  on,  my  partners  in  distress, 
My  comrades  in  this  wilderness. 

Who  still  your  bodies  feel ; 
Awhile  forget  your  griefs  and  fears, 
And  look  beyond  this  vale  of  tears 

To  that  celestial  hill. 

Religion  is  the  idealism  of  man.  And  because  it  is 
so  it  is  eternal.  The  triumph  of  materialism  would 
be  the  surest  way  to  prove  that.  Let  its  programme 
be  carried  out,  and  every  man  get  all  the  goods  he 
wanted.  That  would  be  the  moment  in  which  he 
would  feel  his  emptiness.  The  divine  faculty  in  him 
would  leap  from  what  he  had  to  what  he  had  not. 
The  material  triumph  would  be  the  beginning  of  the 
revolt  against  it.  The  American  proletariat  finds  one 
of  its  bitterest  sarcasms  in  the  religiousness  of  its 
millionaires.  But  the  sarcasm  is  badly  applied. 
Might  they  not  see  in  it  rather  the  evidence  that  to  fill 
a  man  full  of  all  this  world  offers  leaves  him  hungering 
still  ? 

Man  has  always  lived  in  the  ideal,  but  the  character 
and  quality  of  his  ideals  have  varied  enormously. 
He  has  placed  them  in  such  different  directions. 
There  are  people,  for  instance,  whose  eyes  seem  set 
in  the  back  of  their  heads.  They  are  laudatores  tem- 
poris  acti.     For  them  the  best  is  in  the  past.     The 

13 


Life   and  the    Ideal 

golden  age  is  long  since  over.  This  kind  of  thinking 
began  very  early.  Theognis,  the  Greek  poet,  says 
"  Hope  alone  of  kindly  powers  remains  with  men  ; 
the  rest  have  abandoned  us  and  gone  to  heaven.  .  .  . 
The  race  of  pious  men  hath  perished."  The  Roman 
satirists  found  no  age  so  bad  as  their  own.  Juvenal 
declares  they  had  reached  the  limit  of  vice  and  degra- 
dation. Horace  says  that  their  own  generation, 
descended  from  fathers  who  were  worse  than  their 
own  ancestors,  was  producing  another  still  more  corrupt. 
This  glorification  of  the  past  is  a  human  habit,  in  a  way 
common  to  us  all,  and  by  no  means  to  be  entirely 
decried.  It  is  the  mind's  escape  from  the  crudeness 
of  the  real.  "  Distance  lends  enchantment  to  the 
view."  It  is  indeed  a  beautiful  faculty  of  the  soul, 
this  of  dropping  out  from  its  backward  view  all  that 
detracts  from  life's  higher  and  nobler  conceptions, 
this  endeavour  to  find  the  perfect  somewhere,  if  even 
in  illusion.  Thus  it  is  that  heroes  are  made  into 
demi-gods,  that  people  who  were  very  human  are, 
later,  canonised  as  saints.  And  we  like  to  have  it 
so  ;  we  like  Tennyson's  knights  of  the  table  -  round 
better  than  the  characters  in  old  Malory  ;  we  prefer 
the  Robin  Hood  and  the  Cceur  de  Lion  of  "  Ivanhoe  " 
to  the  men  of  that  name  in  veritable  history.  This  is 
all  good  so  long  as  we  keep  things  in  their  proper  place ; 
so  long  as  our  ideal  of  the  imagination  does  not  conquer 
and  destroy  our  ideal  of  truth. 

Yet,  on  the  whole,  in  our  search  for  the  ideal, 
it  is  better  to  keep  our  eyes  where  Nature  has  placed 
them,  and  to  preserve  the  forward  rather  than  the 
backward  look.     Despite  all  the  past  has  to  teach  us, 

14 


The   Quest  of  the   Ideal 

we  say  with  Saint-Simon,  "  The  age  of  gold  which  a 
blind  ignorance  places  in  the  past  is  not  behind  but 
before  us."  The  best  prophets  are  those  with  "  forward- 
looking  thoughts."  To  be  sure  of  man  is  to  be 
sure  of  his  future.  The  despairers  are  belied  by 
history.  While  the  Roman  writers  were  depicting 
a  world  going  from  bad  to  worse,  they  were  unaware 
of  a  power  then  working  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the 
empire,  which  was  to  rejuvenate  humanity  and  to  set 
it  on  a  glorious  new  way  upward.  Despite  Horace, 
despite  Juvenal,  we  are  a  long  way  better  now  than 
they  or  their  ancestors,  and  going  on  to  something 
vastly  better  still.  The  Utopias  are  on  the  way 
to  being  realised.  The  dream  of  a  universal  peace, 
which  Lucan  depicted  in  his  "  PharsaHa,"  which 
Erasmus  cherished,  and  which  scholars  and  kings 
laboured  for,  alas  !  in  vain,  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
is  to-day  a  matter  of  practical  politics,  and  an  assured 
possession  of  the  future.  We  are  moving  towards 
a  better  city,  a  better  state,  a  better  world.  The 
experiments  of  the  past,  with  all  their  story  of  dis- 
appointment and  failure,  are  showing  themselves  as 
preparations  for  a  real  achievement.  The  new  Jeru- 
salem has  yet  to  descend  out  of  heaven  from  God. 

The  point  here  that  we  need  to  be  sure  of  is  that 
the  ideal  can  only  come  through  the  ideal.  The  dis- 
astrous mistake  of  the  past  has  been  that  of  perpetually 
seeking  it  through  materialistic  short  cuts.  That  so 
far  has  been  the  fatal  blunder  in  religion,  in  politics, 
in  social  movements.  Hosts  of  good  people  before 
now  have  beHeved  in  dragooning  men  into  faith. 
Augustine  set  the  bad  example  when,  from  the  text 

15 


Life   and  the    Ideal 

Compel  them  to  come  in,"  he  preached  the  doctrine 
of  religious  persecution.  How  this  insult  to  the 
soul's  primary  faculties  has  been  followed  up,  the  grim 
later  history  of  the  Church  is  the  deplorable  evidence. 
We  see  Charlemagne  offering  to  the  conquered  Saxons 
the  choice  of  baptism  or  the  sword  ;  we  see  Rome 
harrying  the  Albigenses  and  the  Vaudois  with  fire  and 
sword ;  we  see  the  Inquisition,  with  its  ghastly 
tortures;  we  see  the  horrors  of  the  Dragonnades.  As 
late  as  1760  a  French  gentleman  was  burnt  for  not 
bending  the  knee  at  a  procession  of  the  sacrament. 
We  see  under  this  delusion  the  saintHest  people  urging 
the  most  horrible  crimes  ;  Catherine  of  Siena  pro- 
poses to  the  Pope,  as  the  best  means  of  reuniting 
Christendom,  a  levee  en  masse  for  the  invasion  of 
Turkey  and  the  massacre  of  the  Turks.  And  this 
obsession  is  by  no  means  exclusively  a  papal  one. 
There  are  people  to-day  in  Protestant  England,  in 
the  Free  Churches  of  England,  who  are  under  this 
blindness.  We  have  excommunication  recommended  as 
a  means  of  preserving  the  true  faith.  What  we  have 
yet  to  learn  is  that  to  preach  a  doctrine  in  any  other 
than  the  Christian  spirit,  to  offer  it  on  any  other  terms 
than  those  of  love,  is  the  worst  disservice  that  can  be 
rendered  to  it ;  that  to  preach  atonement  or  any  other 
dogma  with  a  threat  at  the  end  of  it  is  the  surest 
means  of  procuring  its  rejection.  You  cannot  bully 
men  into  goodness.  You  cannot  get  heaven  into 
them  by  a  sledge-hammer. 

And  what  is  true  of  reUgion  is  true  of  the  whole 
world  movement.  The  notion  that  human  happiness 
is  to  be  secured  by  a  mere  mechanical  rearrangement  of 

16 


The   Quest  of  the   Ideal 

society  is  one  of  those  ideas  that  hard  experience  ought 
by  this  time  to  have  finally  discredited.  It  is  one  of 
those  short  cuts  that  land  you  in  the  bog.  Rearrange- 
ments we  need,  and  on  a  great  scale,  and  they  will 
come.  But  town-planning,  excellent  as  it  may  be, 
is  one  thing  and  life-planning  another.  You  can  re- 
distribute property  by  carving  it  up.  You  cannot 
distribute  happiness  that  way.  Charles  Fourier  for 
twenty  years  and  more  brooded  the  project  of  his 
"  Phalanstery,"  where,  in  model  establishments,  pro- 
perty, labour,  education,  amusement  and  the  relation 
of  the  sexes  were  to  be  estabUshed  on  a  new  basis — 
a  project  which  was  in  a  given  number  of  years  to 
conquer  the  world  and  to  make  it  a  paradise.  At  length 
he  met  a  capitalist  who  advanced  money  to  start  the 
experiment.  But,  alas  !  Fourier  had  forgotten  one 
thing — human  nature.  The  new  paradise,  after  a 
few  months,  broke  up  in  confusion,  and  the  attempt 
has  never  been  repeated.  There  have  been  before 
and  since  other  cuts  to  Utopia,  with  a  similar  history. 
They  all  go  to  prove  one  thing  :  that,  as  we  have  said, 
the  ideal  can  only  come  through  the  ideal ;  that  the 
only  way  to  a  perfect  society  is  through  the  perfecting 
of  man. 

We  have  discussed  idealisms  of  the  past  and  ideahsms 
of  the  future,  but  there  remains  another,  which  is 
worth  all  our  attention.  It  is  that  which  is  concerned 
with  the  present  and  now.  "  Alas  !  "  says  Carlyle, 
in  **  Past  and  Present/'  "  the  ideal  has  always  to 
grow  in  the  real,  to  seek  out  its  bed  and  board  there, 
often  in  a  very  sorry  way."  One  may  use  his  sentence 
without  any  "  alas  "  to  it  ;  use  it,  indeed,  as  a  glorious 

17  B 


Life  and  the    Ideal 

fact  and  an  inspiring  admonition.  Is  it  nothing  to  us 
that  every  humblest  thing  we  handle  has  in  it,  if  we 
inquire  deep  enough,  mystic  secrets  of  being  that  wait 
to  be  explored  !  And  all  the  people  that  surround  us, 
in  the  household  and  out  of  doors,  what  are  we  doing 
with  them,  making  of  them  ?  Are  we  looking  simply 
at  their  visible  presentation  ;  at  this  faihng  and 
that  ?  It  will  be  better  for  us  to  look  deeper  ;  to 
perceive  the  ideal  in  our  brother,  in  our  neighbour,  and 
to  make  friends  with  that.  It  is  this  perceptive  power 
of  love  that  is  the  maker  of  the  ideal  home  and  of  the 
ideal  world. 

The  past  is  great,  the  future  is  greater,  but  they 
must  neither  be  allowed  to  beHttle  the  present.  Jean 
Paul  gives  us  here  a  Htany  which  we  might  well  chant 
every  morning:  "Be  every  minute,  man,  a  full  life  to 
thee  !  Make  not  the  present  a  means  of  thy  future  ; 
for  the  future  is  nothing  but  a  coming  present,  and 
the  present,  which  thou  despisest,  was  once  a  future 
which  thou  desiredst  !  "  To  find  the  ideal  in  the 
actual,  a  hidden  best  in  what  seems  the  worst ;  to 
search  for  the  good  in  your  brother  as  for  hid  treasure ; 
to  value  every  new  moment  of  time  as  an  unspeak- 
able gift ;  to  find,  as  Luther  says,  "  God  in  every 
blade  of  grass,  in  every  creature  " ;  to  discern  in  every 
material  a  hidden  spiritual,  in  every  temporal  an 
aspect  of  the  eternal — this  is  the  soul's  wisdom;  its 
philosopher's  stone,  that  turns  all  it  touches  into  gold. 


i8 


II 

WORK    AND    THE    IDEAL 

If  we  could  compose  a  decalogue  of  God's  unwritten 
revelation,  one  of  its  first  commandments  would  be, 
"  Thou  shalt  work."  The  universe  is  organised  on  a 
basis  of  labour  ;  is  itself  the  supreme  example  of 
labour.  From  end  to  end  of  its  immeasurable  dominion 
there  is  no  corner  of  it  that  is  idle.  The  motionless 
things,  closer  seen,  show  themselves  as  full  of  move- 
ment. Matter,  the  scientists  tell  us  to-day,  is  a  mode 
of  motion.  The  atom  is  a  whirlpool  of  forces.  The 
telescope  shows  us  nebulae  that  are  forming  into  stars, 
stars  that  are  evolving  from  one  stage  to  another, 
and  all  driving  onwards  towards  unknown  bournes. 
And  the  labour  here  is  organised  ;  the  work  is  according 
to  a  plan.  You  cannot  study  the  universe  anywhere, 
in  its  minutest  portions,  without  feeling  the  mentahty 
behind  it.  Take  Huxley's  description  of  what  goes 
on  in  a  salamander's  e^g:  ''The  plastic  material 
undergoes  changes  so  rapid,  and  yet  so  steady  and 
purpose-like  in  their  succession,  that  one  can  only 
compare  them  to  those  operated  by  a  skilled  modeller 
upon  a  formless  lump  of  clay.  As  with  an  invisible 
trowel  the  mass  is  divided  and  subdivided  into  smaller 
and  smaller  portions.  .  .  .  And  then  it  is  as  if  a 
dehcate  linger  traced  out  the  line  to  be  occupied  by  the 

19 


Life  and  the    Ideal 

spinal  column,  and  moulded  the  contour  of  the  body  ; 
.  .  .  so  that  after  watching  the  process  hour  by 
hour  one  is  almost  involuntarily  possessed  by  the 
notion  that  some  more  subtle  aid  to  the  vision  than 
a  microscope  would  show  the  hidden  artist  with  his 
plan  before  him,  striving  with  skilful  manipulation  to 
perfect  his  work." 

Our  working  universe,  under  the  guidance  of  this 
**  Artist,"  takes,  we  perceive,  its  hoUdays  not  by  rest, 
by  mere  inertia,  but  by  change  of  labour.  It  keeps 
itself  fresh  by  a  constant  flux.  Its  material,  decayed 
and  worn  out  by  one  form  of  service,  becomes  reborn 
as  something  else,  to  pursue  a  new  career.  The  rotten 
branch  of  your  dead  tree,  which  fought  so  long  a  losing 
battle  for  life,  leaps  into  new  energy  as  you  fling  it  on 
your  winter  fire — flies  up  into  heat,  into  motion,  into 
buoyant  gases  ;  out  of  weakness  made  strong,  it 
indicates  once  more  its  essential  immortality.  It  is 
a  spectacle  for  every  tired  man  of  us  ;  the  cosmic 
whisper  to  us  that  weariness  is  only  a  passing  phase; 
that  for  us  also  are  reserves  of  exhaustless  energy  to 
fall  back  on  ;  that  decaying  is  only  a  form  of  new 
becoming. 

We  say  that  work  in  itself  is  a  gospel,  the  primitive 
gospel  ;  one,  if  we  will  hearken  to  it,  full  of  hope, 
of  reUgion,  of  all  moraHty.  It  is  full  of  hope,  for  it 
rests  on  the  principle  that  things  as  they  are  can  be 
made  better  by  effort.  They  are  here  to  be  made 
better,  by  their  very  structure  inviting  us  to  the 
task  and  to  be  happy  in  performing  it.  Think  of  that 
to  begin  with.  Is  it  not  good  for  us  to  find  ourselves 
in  an  improvable  universe,  rather  than  in  one  where 

20 


Work  and   the   Ideal 

there  is  nothing  left  to  be  done  ?  To  be  invited  as 
co-operators  with  the  great  Artificer,  rather  than  to 
stand  as  mere  spectators,  with  our  hands  in  our  pockets ! 
*'  Come  and  do  something  !  "  Is  not  this  a  happier 
call  than  '*  Come  and  look  at  what  has  been  done  "  ? 
It  is  the  highest  of  invitations  ;  the  final  honour  that 
God  can  offer  us. 

This  gospel  is  full  also  of  the  faith  doctrine.  Atheists 
and  Methodists  are  one  in  this,  that  they  must  believe 
in  the  quaHties  of  the  things  the}^  handle.  The 
shoemaker  begins  his  task  to-day  in  the  conviction 
that  the  leather  he  works  in  will  prove  itself  leather. 
Suppose  it  took  the  character  of  glue  or  paste  !  The 
carpenter  expects  that  oak  and  elm  will  be  steadfast  to 
their  qualities.  The  sailor  puts  to  sea  sure  that  the 
sea  in  all  its  moods  will  remain  a  calculable  element. 
The  elements  never  strike  work,  never  become  turn- 
coats. They  are  faithfullest  of  servants.  Observe 
how  full  of  response  they  are,  nay,  even  of  appeal. 
Of  unimpeachable  character  in  themselves,  they  ask 
for  character  in  us.  The  wood,  stone,  iron  we  work 
on  reveal  their  treasures  according  to  the  character 
we  bring  to  them.  They  lament  our  lack  of  skill,  our 
laziness.  When  we  bring  to  them  our  best,  they  respond 
with  a  visible  gladness.  They  hasten  to  pubHsh  the 
artist's  skill,  the  workman's  fidelity. 

And  this  gospel  has  a  certain  compulsion  behind  it. 
It  has  its  own  system  of  rewards  and  punishments. 
Nature  is  a  humourist,  and  has  her  own  way  of  deahng 
with  her  offspring.  She  knows  her  human  ;  knows 
him  for  a  lazy  fellow.  But  she  keeps  him  to  the  mark. 
For  one  thing,  by  a  system  of  limited  supplies.     Actual 

21 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

wealth,  the  commodities  by  which  we  Hve,  can  only  be 
accumulated  to  a  certain  degree.  Stop  work  for  only 
a  short  period,  and  we  should  all  speedily  be  in  a  state 
of  starvation.  Make  us  all  milHonaires  to-morrow,  and 
the  same  thing  would  hold.  The  world's  shoes  would 
wear  out  and  need  to  be  replaced  ;  we  could  only  get 
coats  and  frocks  by  somebody  making  them.  The 
coal  would  have  to  be  won  from  the  mines,  the  fish 
from  the  sea,  the  wheat  from  the  field.  The  world, 
in  short,  would  be  just  as  busy  a  world  as  before. 

Work,  which  is  thus  man's  necessity,  is  also  his  health 
and  his  happiness.  This,  too,  is  writ  deep  in  the  nature 
of  things.  Your  arm,  your  foot,  your  hand,  your 
brain,  will  come  to  their  perfection  only  through 
ordered,  steady  exercise.  Skill  is  a  winning  fight  with 
difficulties  ;  it  comes  from  the  alHance  between  your 
will  and  your  intellect,  the  finest  of  combinations. 
You  can  only  find  yourself  in  work.  It  is  also  the 
happiness-maker.  When  you  are  cobbling  shoes  or 
sweeping  a  room,  remember  you  are  in  a  better  condition, 
in  a  more  joyous  and  Hfe-developing  condition,  than  if 
you  were  lolHng  in  carriages,  or  gorging  at  feasts, 
or  being  waited  on  by  menials.  Do  not  seek  to  change 
places  ;  it  would  be  a  move  downwards.  Adam 
Bede,  as  George  Eliot  pictures  him,  with  his  feet  in 
dry  shavings,  his  window  open  to  the  spring  air, 
whistling  a  tune  as  his  plane  flies  over  the  board, 
is  at  the  top  of  human  living.  Is  your  labour  mono- 
tonous ?  But  you  need  not  be  monotonous  in  doing 
it.  While  the  hands  are  at  work  the  mind  is  free. 
Robert  Burns  pushes  his  plough  and  at  the  same  time 
weaves  immortal  verse.     Samuel  Drew,  the  Cornish 

22 


Work  and  the   Ideal 

Methodist,  works  in  leather  and  ponders  that  fine 
bit  of  metaphysic  on  the  soul's  immortahty.  A 
Yorkshire  lay  preacher,  whose  humour  and  power 
were  the  delight  of  his  countryside,  asked  where  he 
got  his  ideas,  said,  "  Where  I  get  all  my  good  things — 
behind  my  loom,  sir  !  "  Work  in  proper  conditions  is 
the  salt  of  life.  Good  is  the  new  eagerness  we  bring 
to  it  in  the  morning  ;  good  the  mighty  swing  of  it 
through  the  day ;  good  the  weariness  of  evening, 
with  its  countering  bliss  of  repose. 

It  is  wonderful  how,  with  a  will  to  work,  our  whole 
nature,  conscious  and  unconscious,  works  with  us. 
Hidden  powers,  that  seem  to  have  been  waiting  for  us, 
join  themselves  to  our  industry.  In  mental  effort 
especially  there  are  all  manner  of  reinforcements. 
Sir  Benjamin  Brodie  gives  an  account  of  himself 
here  which  represents  a  common  experience  :  "It 
has  often  happened  to  me  to  have  been  occupied 
by  a  particular  subject  of  inquiry  ;  to  have  accumulated 
a  store  of  facts  connected  with  it,  and  to  have  been 
unable  to  proceed  further.  Then,  after  an  interval  of 
time,  without  any  addition  to  my  stock  of  knowledge, 
I  have  found  the  obscurity  and  confusion  in  which 
the  subject  was  previously  enveloped  to  have  cleared 
away  ;  the  facts  seemed  all  to  have  settled  themselves 
in  the  right  places,  and  their  mutual  relations  to  have 
become  apparent,  although  I  have  not  been  sensible  of 
having  made  any  distinct  effort  for  that  purpose."  The 
brain,  in  fact,  once  set  going  in  a  given  direction, 
works  by  itself.  It  works  while  we  sleep.  We  have 
inspirations  which  seem  to  come  from  nowhere. 
Something  other  than  ourselves  speaks  to  us.     Philo 

23 


Life  and   the    Ideal 

of  Alexandria  gives  us  his  own  account  of  this.  "  Some- 
times," says  he,  "  when  I  have  come  to  my  work 
empty,  I  have  suddenly  become  full ;  ideas  being  in  an 
invisible  manner  showered  upon  me  and  implanted 
in  me  from  on  high."  De  Musset,  from  another  side 
of  the  mental  field,  brings  his  witness  :  "  I  do  not  work, 
I  listen  ;  someone  whispers  me  in  the  ear."  Something 
hke  this  goes  on  through  all  the  working  world.  What- 
ever our  industry,  steady  effort  attracts  unknown 
powers  to  our  aid.  We  reach  a  point  where,  without 
understanding  the  process,  we  discover  we  have  ceased 
to  be  bunglers,  have  struck  upon  the  joy  of  competence. 

Labour,  backed  thus  at  all  points  by  Nature's 
sanctions,  has,  through  Christianity,  become  a  reUgion. 
It  reaches  its  supreme  consecration  in  Jesus  the 
Carpenter.  The  world  is  at  last  slowly  awakening 
to  what  that  means.  While  the  metaphysics  of  the 
Person  of  Christ  are  falling  into  the  background, 
what  is  filling  the  people's  imagination  is  the  thought 
of  Him  as  the  Leader  and  Sanctifier  of  Labour. 
Pius  IX.,  addressing  once  a  number  of  the  Roman 
aristocracy,  laid  stress  on  the  fact  that  Jesus  was  of 
noble  birth.  That,  for  the  modern  world,  is  assuredly 
not  where  the  emphasis  lies.  Not  in  the  Pope's  sense 
at  least. 

Let  us  say,  indeed,  that  Jesus  was  of  noble  birth. 
He  was  born  into  the  nobihty  of  the  workers.  His 
nobility  was  that  of  Schiller's  dictum  :  "  Say  not, 
am  I  in  the  nobility?  But,  is  nobility  in  thee?" 
The  highest  soul  this  world  has  seen  was  a  mechanic  by 
trade.  Behind  His  year  and  a  half  as  a  teacher  lay 
long  years   in   which    He   toiled    in  wood,    **  making 

24 


Work  and   the   Ideal 

ploughs  and  yokes,"  as  one  of  the  earhest  Fathers  says. 
And  that  was  a  preaching  mightier  perhaps  than  His 
mightiest  word.  It  was  the  inauguration  of  labour's 
day.  It  was  the  shifting  of  the  basis  of  esteem.  In  the 
age  He  came  into  work  of  that  kind  was  under  taboo. 
The  Greek,  the  Roman,  thought  it  an  occupation  for 
slaves.  And  for  long  ages  after  that  continued 
the  current  view.  It  was  endorsed  by  official  Chris- 
tianity. The  Pope  in  the  splendour  of  his  Court  forgot 
the  tradition  of  the  Carpenter.  To-day  we  are  begin- 
ning once  more  to  remember  it.  The  Redeemer  of 
our  soul  is  becoming  the  Redeemer  of  our  economics, 
of  our  social  state.  The  age-long  blindness  is  passing 
away.  When  we  look  at  marble  halls,  at  magnificent 
staircases,  at  exquisite  furniture,  our  reverence  goes 
not  to  the  exquisites  who  parade  here,  at  the  do- 
nothing  whose  unearned  money  has  bought  all  this, 
but  to  the  horny-handed  toilers,  the  foundation-diggers, 
the  masons,  the  artists,  who  have  wrought  these  things 
to  their  perfection. 

The  worker  is  at  last  coming  to  his  own.  The 
dream  of  Fourier,  who  in  his  **  Phalanstery  "  decreed 
the  chief  honours  to  the  doers  of  the  humblest  and 
most  disagreeable  tasks,  has  begun  to  haunt  us. 
The  other  day  the  coal-miner — the  man  who,  for  our 
sakes,  gives  up  in  working  hours  his  sunshine  and  day- 
light— combined  in  an  irresistible  host,  gave  us  a 
hint  of  his  power.  That  he  is  using  it  with  such  entire 
moderation  is  a  proof  of  his  essential  nobleness.  He, 
too,  hke  Him  of  Nazareth,  is  of  the  nobihty,  and  has 
his  noblesse  oblige. 

We  need^not  fear  the  ascendancy  of  labour,  and  that 

25 


Life  and   the    Ideal 

for  the  reason  that  it  will  be,  more  and  more,  an 
ascendancy  of  character.  Work,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  the  maker  of  character.  It  is  the  atmosphere  in 
which  the  virtues  grow.  It  is  here  men  gain  discipline, 
where  they  win  depth  and  seriousness.  It  is  from  its 
ranks  our  religion  came,  and  will  continue  to  come. 
Since  the  beginning  in  Nazareth  the  great  religious 
movements  have  had  this  sphere  as  starting-point. 
The  English  Free  Churches,  through  all  their  history, 
have  been  communities  of  workers.  You  will  not 
find  a  born  idler  among  them.  The  essential  sanity 
of  labour  to-day  is  seen  in  the  choice  of  its  representa- 
tives. The  Labour  Members  in  Parliament  are  elected 
on  their  character.  Let  a  man  lose  that  and  the  toilers 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  him. 

What  is  certain  is  that  the  working  world  will  develop 
its  own  laws.  And  they  will  be  good  laws — Nature's 
own.  They  will  exhibit  a  proper  sense  of  values. 
Ability  will  always  get  its  own,  and  be  paid  its  wages. 
The  master  mind,  that  of  the  inventor,  the  organiser, 
will  keep  its  kinghood.  Nothing,  it  will  be  perceived, 
can  be  done  without  discipline,  without  obedience. 
Knowledge  will  always  govern  unknowledge.  Let 
the  captain  be  deposed,  and  the  ship  will  fail  to  reach 
port.  Labour,  by  its  inherent  qualities,  its  primal 
necessities,  will  follow  the  maxim  that  order  is  heaven's 
first  law. 

The  highest  labour  takes  its  own  wages  and  is 
paid  in  full.  For  here  the  reward  is  in  the  doing  of 
it ;  in  the  development  it  brings  to  the  inner  nature, 
in  the  sharing  of  results  with  the  whole  world.  These 
are  the  wages  God   takes  for  Himself ;    the  wages 

26 


Work  and   the   Ideal 

Jesus  earned  ;  the  wages  earned  in  their  degree  by 
all  who  follow  His  high  path.  In  theology  there 
have  been  fiercest  controversies  over  the  doctrine 
of  free  grace  versus  the  doctrine  of  works.  In  reaUty 
there  is  no  room  for  controversy  ;  there  is  no  opposition 
between  the  two.  Free  grace  and  good  work  are  bound 
up  in  inextricable  union.  You  never  meet  one  without 
the  other. 

Labour,  we  perceive,  is  to-day  moving  towards  its 
true  position,  but  much  has  j^et  to  be  done.  One 
of  the  chief  modern  tasks  is  to  remove  from  it  the 
hardships,  the  injustices,  which  prevent  it  from  being, 
in  all  its  departments,  a  health,  a  delight.  Science 
must  help  in  subduing  the  great  world-forces  more 
completely  to  our  service,  making  the  artisan  less  of 
a  hand  labourer  and  more  of  a  thinker.  Its  inventions, 
its  combinations,  must  be  for  the  upbuilding  of  life, 
and  not  for  slaughters  and  destructions  of  it.  We 
want  a  century  of  science  for  the  remodelling  of  the 
home,  the  saving  of  women  from  ceaseless  household 
drudgeries.  It  has,  too,  to  redistribute  power  so  that 
the  toiler  may  do  his  work  in  the  open,  and  not  shut 
up  in  stifling  factories.  We  want  a  new  social  ethic 
which  shall  give  greater  honour  to  the  humbler  task. 
We  must  everywhere  mingle  grace  with  works  ;  the 
grace,  for  instance,  of  thanks,  of  praise.  We  have  not 
paid  our  helper  by  giving  him  money.  He  must  have 
our  soul's  coin,  the  expression  of  our  appreciation, 
our  obligation.  '*  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and 
I  work."  There  have  we  the  eternal  ideal — the  law 
for  a  community  where  each,  inspired  by  the  highest, 
gives  of  his  best  in  the  service  of  all. 

27 


Ill 

COMPANIONS    OF    THE    IDEAL 

Companionship  is  of  the  essence  of  life.  We  were 
made  for  our  fellow.  At  every  moment,  in  a  thousand 
different  forms,  we  are  tasting  his  society.  '  You 
are  in  touch  with  him — without  speech — as  you  walk 
down  the  street.  The  group  of  children  j^onder  is  a 
feast  for  eye  and  heart.  These  happy  faces  play 
on  every  chord  of  you.  And  the  grown-up  crowd,  too, 
each  passer-by  with  a  whole  life-history  written  on 
those  few  inches  of  feature,  how  that  stirs  the  inmost 
humanity  in  you,  thrills  you  with  a  sense  of  oneness 
in  the  common  mystery  of  existence  ! 

That  is  a  companionship  in  which  you  do  the  think- 
ing. There  is  that  other,  closer  one,  where  the  thinking 
is  shared.  How  good  is  great  talk  1  It  is  better  than 
oratory  ;  it  is  freer,  and  is  the  product  not  of  one, 
but  of  a  mixture  of  high  souls.  Robert  Hall's  con- 
versation was  better  than  his  sermons.  It  took  fire 
from  contact  with  other  minds.  "  I  have  heard 
Coleridge,"  says  Christopher  North  ;  **  that  man  is 
entitled  to  speak  on  till  Doomsday — or  rather  the 
genius  within  him — for  he  is  inspired."  What  talk 
Plato  gives  us  in  the  "  Symposium  "  !     The  eighteenth 

28 


Companions  of  the   Ideal 

century,  we  suppose,  could  offer  nothing  finer,  no 
richer  flavoured  wine  of  hfe,  than  was  tasted  by  that 
charmed  circle  where  Sir  Joshua,  and  Burke,  and 
Goldsmith  and  Garrick,  with  Johnson  as  centre, 
filled  the  swift-fleeting  hours  with  glorious  converse. 

But  companionship,  we  repeat,  is  by  no  means 
restricted  to  speech.  You  may  have  the  keenest 
sense  of  it  and  no  word  spoken.  We  are  never,  indeed, 
truly  intimate  until  we  can  do  without  speaking. 
And  our  fellow  man,  whether  vocal  or  speechless, 
is  by  no  means  our  only  society.  The  world  we  live 
in  is  entirely  companionable.  Your  bird,  your  dog, 
are  on  more  than  speaking  terms.  A  winter  fire  is 
one  of  the  cheerfullest  of  talkers.  This  happy  glow, 
this  piece  of  central  heat  loaned  to  you  from  the  sun's 
heart — between  you  and  it  there  is  so  much  in  common. 
Nature  herself  is  an  inexhaustible  talker.  Jarno,  in 
"Wilhelm  Meister,"  expresses  what  is  so  often  our 
feeling  towards  her :  "  Clever  people  soon  explain 
themselves  to  one  another,  and  then  they  have 
done.  But  now  I  will  dive  into  the  recesses  of  the 
rocks  and  with  them  begin  a  mute,  unfathomable 
conversation." 

Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  our  greatest  society  is 
in  the  company  of  the  unseen  ?  It  is  so,  even  on  this 
visible  plane  of  things.  The  great  m.ass  of  our  friends 
are  at  this  moment  away  from  our  ken.  There  are 
many  we  have  not  seen  for  years.  Yet  the  sense 
that  they  are  here,  still  dwellers  with  us  on  this  planet, 
looking  daily  on  the  same  sun,  partakers  in  the  same 
world  interests,  sending  us  from  time  to  time  their 
messages  of  regard,  how  much  that  is  to  us  !   What  a 

29 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

sense  of  loss  when  they  are  gone  !  Yonder  we  know — 
across  the  world,  it  may  be — is  a  kindly  face  that 
kindles  at  our  name,  and  we  are  all  the  better  for 
knowing  it.  That  far-off  friend  is  one  of  our  assets. 
To  think  over  the  good  times  we  have  had  together, 
and,  full  of  the  happy  memory,  to  send  him  wireless 
messages  of  good-will,  is  one  of  the  most  wholesome 
of  mental  exercises.  Who  knows  that  the  message, 
winged  by  the  soul's  inner  forces,  may  not  cross  the 
spacial  bounds,  and  enter  his  heart  as  a  sudden,  mystic 
encouragement  ! 

The  greatest  friends  of  the  future  may  be  invisible 
from  each  other  to-day.  The  youth  yonder  is  grow- 
ing to  his  manhood,  and  somewhere,  all  hidden  from 
him  now,  but  born  and  actually  Hving  on  this  same 
God's  earth,  is  the  maiden  who  some  day  will  be  his, 
in  the  closest  of  all  intimacies.  He  has  not,  maybe, 
seen  her  face  nor  heard  her  name,  and  yet  she  is  there, 
Hving,  thinking,  praying,  let  us  hope.  The  character 
is  day  by  day  shaping  in  her,  which  is  to  make  all  the 
difference  to  his  life.  Here  is  an  unseen  companion 
with  whom  he  has  not  yet  exchanged  word,  but  who 
carries  all  his  fates  in  her  hand  !  A  beautiful  fellow- 
ship, surely,  which  should  stir  all  that  is  best  in  him  ! 
Let  him  cultivate  it ;  let  him  prepare  himself  for  her 
by  whatever  inner  cleansing  and  strengthening  are 
possible  to  him,  ere  yet  they  clasp  hands. 

But  we  are  here  only  at  the  beginning  of  our  ideal 
companions.  How  is  it  that  we  are  never  less  alone 
than  when  we  are  alone  ?  It  is,  for  one  thing,  because 
our  unity  as  persons  is  centred  in  multipHcity.  We 
carry  such  a  company  within  us.     We  are  not  the  "  I  " 

30 


Companions  of  the   Ideal 

of  the  present  moment  only.  Behind  it,  Hnked  most 
closely  on  to  it,  stretches  the  endless  procession  of  the 
"  I's  "  of  our  past.  And  these  keep  up  an  incessant 
conversation.  Well  does  Mme.  von  Kriidener  say,  "  Le 
meillcur  ami  a  avoir  c'est  le  passe."  Yes,  provided  our 
past  is  a  friend  !  Have  we,  who  are  starting  in  life, 
sufficiently  considered  this  ;  that  day  by  day  by  our 
thinkings  and  actings  we  are  creating  a  companion  that 
we  shall  never  be  able  to  shake  off ;  this  past  of  ours 
which  sits  with  us  in  our  inmost  retreat,  which  attends 
our  sleeping  and  our  waking ;  which  never  stops 
talking  ?  Were  it  not  w^orth  our  while,  apart  from 
any  other  consideration,  to  make  this  so  close  intimate 
of  ours  an  agreeable  intimate  ?  The  man  who  wrecks 
his  hfe  at  the  start,  who  begins  by  trampHng  on  his 
moral  nature,  has  no  need  to  wait  for  a  Day  of  Judg- 
ment. To  have  turned  his  past  into  an  odious  con- 
versationalist, whose  reminders  bring  perpetually  the 
blush  to  his  cheek,  is  a  judgment  here  and  now. 

The  past  in  its  aspect  of  companionship  carries,  as 
we  see,  its  threat ;  but  let  us  not  dwell  too  much  on 
that.  For  its  leading  feature  is  beneficence.  There 
are  more  smiles  in  it,  after  all,  than  frowns.  Our  own 
folHes  enter  into  it,  but  against  that  let  us  put  the  vast 
treasures  it  brings.  On  your  bookshelf  yonder — we 
are  supposing  you  are  a  reader — there  is  waiting  for 
you  the  finest  companionship  the  world  offers.  You 
never  saw  Milton  or  Shakespeare,  or  a  Kempis  or 
Plato  ;  but  here  you  have  them  talking  their  best. 
Here  are  the  inspired  moods  of  the  greatest  spirits — 
made  permanent  in  the  letters  of  the  alphabet.  They 
never  heard  your  name,  never  dreamed  of  your  exist- 

31 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

ence  ;  but  if  you  care  for  their  company  they  are 
ready  to  enter  j^our  circle,  to  impart  to  you  the  inmost 
of  their  souls.  Superb  democracy  of  the  spiritual 
world  !  Its  highest  can  never  keep  itself  to  itself  ; 
it  incessantly  seeks  society;  yes,  yours  and  mine. 
Shall  we  trouble  about  Park  Lane  receptions  to  which 
we  are  "not  invited  when,  without  influential  intro- 
ductions, without  changing  into  evening  dress,  we  can 
enter  such  company  as  this  ? 

Let  us  not  talk  of  the  world  as  being  unsocial. 
The  best  men  in  all  departments  press  their  acquaint- 
ance upon  you.  Literature  is  not  the  only  language 
in  which  they  address  you.  When  you  listen  to 
great  music,  when  you  stand  before  a  masterpiece  of 
art,  you  are  once  more  in  contact  with  souls.  Rubens 
is  dead,  and  Raffael  and  Mozart  and  Beethoven,  but 
the  ethereal  part  of  them  survives,  and  offers  to  you 
its  glorious  fellowship.  All  the  world's  music,  all  its 
artistry,  are  forms  of  the  companionship  to  which 
life  has  introduced  us.  With  such  magnificent  names 
on  our  visiting  list  we  may  surely  consider  ourselves 
as  in  good  society  ;  yes,  and  feel  it  a  call  upon  us, 
in  mere  decency,  to  keep  our  souls  in  trim  to  receive 
such  guests. 

But  these,  after  all,  are  voices  of  the  past.  What 
of  the  present  ?  Is  there,  beyond  what  has  yet  been 
said,  any  ideal  companionship  there  ?  Yes,  there  is  a 
crowd  of  companions.  To  begin  with,  our  soul's 
habits,  its  perceptions,  its  convictions,  as  they  deepen 
and  strengthen,  become  almost  objectified;  they 
stand  as  it  were  around  our  central  self,  and  have 
constant  speech  with  it.     What  an  expressive  word  is 

32 


Companions  of  the   Ideal 

that  which  Leigh  Hunt  uses  of  Napoleon  in  his  later 
days  :  "No  great  principle  stood  by  him  !  "  No  great 
principle,  for  our  principles,  if  we  have  any,  are  indeed 
companions.  In  life's  crises  we  turn  to  them  as  to 
old  and  trusty  friends.  Born  of  great  moments,  fed 
and  exercised  b}^  life's  experience,  hardened  by  com- 
bat, they  stand  there  embattled  for  the  onset  of  the  foe. 
Alas  for  us  if  the  space  these  should  occupy  is  an 
empty  one  !  A  man  with  convictions,  said  John  Mill, 
is  worth  ten  men  with  only  opinions.  The  man  of 
principles,  you  feel,  is  more  than  himself.  There  is 
always  something  behind  him.  "  They  burnt  Huss," 
said  Luther  on  his  way  to  Worms,  "  but  not  the  truth 
with  him."  Beside  his  mortal  part,  that  presently 
was  to  perish  in  the  flames,  moved  another  part  that 
was  immortal. 

And  may  we  not  speak  here  of  other  invisible  fellow- 
ships that  touch  upon  and  influence  our  career  in  this 
world  ?  We  are  to-day  beyond  the  notion  that  the 
world  of  life  is  comprehended  within  the  view  of  our 
five  senses.  For  aught  we  know,  there  may  be  a  dozen 
worlds  all  interpenetrating  our  own.  That,  indeed, 
has  been  an  almost  universal  belief.  Plutarch,  speak- 
ing of  the  daimon  of  Socrates,  holds  that  it  was  "the 
influence  of  a  superior  intelligence  and  a  diviner  soul 
operating  on  the  mind  of  Socrates,  whose  divine  and 
holy  temper  fitted  him  to  hear  this  spiritual  speech." 
It  was  a  beautiful  tradition  of  the  early  Church  that 
each  soul  had  its  angel  attendant.  Epictetus  bids  us 
remember  that  when  we  have  barred  the  door  of  our 
chamber  we  are  not  alone  :  "  God  is  with  us  and  our 
attendant    spirit."     "  Die    Geisterwelt    is    nicht    ver- 

33  c 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

schlossen."  We  know  at  present  a  world  of  three 
dimensions.  But  the  figure  "  three "  contains  no 
finaUty.  Who  says  that  with  the  development  of 
man's  spiritual  nature  he  will  not  see  over  the  wall 
that  now  encompasses  us  and  find  a  new  kindred 
beyond  ?  Is  it  not  congruous  with  the  nature  of  our 
universe  to  believe  that  its  boundlessness  includes  a 
boundless  series  of  beings  ? 

Think  you  this  mould  of  hopes  and  fears 
Could  find  no  BtateUer  than  his  peers 
In  yonder  hundred  million  spheres  ? 

These,  however,  are  studies  of  the  outskirts.  Let 
us  end  at  the  centre.  Our  fellow  inhabitants  of  this 
universe  are  ever  of  interest  to  us,  but  the  chief  concern 
of  all  of  us  is  with  the  Master  of  the  House.  Have 
we  or  have  we  not  here  an  invisible  companion  with 
whom  we  may  hold  converse  ?  Plato  in  "  The  Laws  " 
speaks  of  three  suppositions  about  the  Gods  on 
which  evil  men  might  construct  their  Hves  :  "  either 
that  they  did  not  exist,  or  that  they  did  not  care  for 
men ;  or  that  they  might  be  easily  appeased  by  sacri- 
fices." It  is  a  significant  passage ;  and  that  because  it 
points  so  unerringly  to  the  one  sure  foundation  of  our 
doctrine  of  God.  Modern  science  and  philosophy  have 
played  havoc  with  some  of  the  old  theologic  and 
metaphysical  arguments  about  the  Deity.  But  in 
doing  so  they  have  opened  the  way  to  a  better.  We 
beheve  in  God,  as  Plato  here  hints,  because  we  cannot 
reach  a  good  Hfe  without  Him.  It  is  the  soul's  native 
necessities  that  force  us  here.  I  beheve  in  food, 
because  I  get  hungry.  Ships  are  built  on  the  suppo- 
sition of  an  ocean.    The  soul  is  built  on  the  supposition 

34 


Companions  of  the   Ideal 

of'an  over-soul.  There  is  a  whole  inner  apparatus — 
and  that  the  highest  part  of  us — which  will  only  work 
on  this  supposition.  Our  entire  uppermost  storey,  our 
aspiration,  our  faith,  our  worship  faculty,  our  whole 
vocabulary  of  the  spiritual  life,  find  here,  and  in 
naught  else,  their  meaning  and  value.  If  this  bank 
does  not  exist,  our  inner  treasure  is  so  much  waste 
paper.  An  evil  life  may  do  without  God  ;  for  a  good 
life  He  is  a  necessity. 

It  is  the  same  with  that  other  supposition  of  Plato's 
evildoer  ;  the  idea  that  God,  if  He  exists,  cares  not. 
We  know  He  cares  because  our  spiritual  life  will 
only  work  on  that  belief.  The  essential  woodenness  of 
materialism  has  nowhere  more  conspicuously  dis- 
played itself  than  in  the  assertion  that  the  laws  of 
Nature  preclude  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  They  offer 
us  a  God  enmeshed  in  His  own  universe,  as  a  spider 
imprisoned  in  his  w^eb.  It  is  certainly  odd  that  man, 
moving  amongst  the  cosmic  laws,  should  yet  be  free  to 
influence  and  act  on  his  fellow,  and  yet  that  God  should 
not  have  the  same  liberty !  Is  not  God  at  least  as  free 
as  His  creature  ?  The  proof  here,  w^e  say,  is  in  the 
human  need  and  the  human  experience.  Prayer  is 
the  intercourse  between  ourself  and  our  Ideal  Com- 
panion. The  reahty  of  it  is  in  its  effects.  St.  Patrick, 
in  his  Confessions,  says  of  his  ten  years'  slavery  : 
**  Amid  frost  and  snow  I  felt  no  ill,  nor  was  there 
any  sloth  in  me,  because  the  Spirit  was  burning  within 
me."  MiHions  of  less-known  men  could  corroborate 
that  testimony.  What  has  sustained  them  in  their 
life-conflict  has  been  always  this  Other,  Higher  Self, 
witnessing,  "burning"  within  them.     From  all  other 

35 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

companionships  they  have  come  back,  with  deepest 
satisfaction,  to  this  Companion.  Their  converse  with 
Him  is  in  itself  always  a  move  upwards.  In  that  single 
fact  is  the  all-sufficient  evidence  for  prayer.  To  cease 
from  this  converse  is  to  pronounce  sentence  of  death 
on  the  whole  upper  half  of  our  being. 


36 


IV 
SIN    AND    THE    IDEAL 

Lord  Morley,  in  one  of  his  essays,  speaking  of 
Emerson,  says  :  **  In  like  manner  Emerson  has  little 
to  say  of  that  horrid  burden  and  impediment  on  the 
soul  which  the  Churches  call  sin,  and  which,  by  what- 
ever name  we  call  it,  is  a  very  real  catastrophe  in  the 
moral  nature  of  man."  Emerson  was  a  comfortable 
optimist,  who,  gifted  with  a  sunny  temperament, 
had  an  exceedingly  good  time  in  the  world.  He  saw 
Hfe  on  its  best  sides.  One  might  compare  him  with 
Madame  R^camier,  of  whom  Sainte  Beuve  says  : 
**  She  simply  could  not  see  evil  anywhere."  There  are 
many  like  Emerson.  Indeed,  what  Morley  said  of 
him  might  be  said  of  our  age,  not  excluding  the  Church 
itself.  It  is,  indeed,  of  the  Church  idea  and  treatment 
of  sin  that  we  wish  here  to  speak.  Has  it  at  present  a 
doctrine  of  sin  ?  If  so,  it  seems  somewhat  obscure, 
and  there  is  great  shyness  in  presenting  it.  There  are 
reasons  for  this.  On  the  one  hand,  there  is  a  prevailing 
easy  sentimentalism  which  prefers  smooth  topics  to 
rough  ones.  On  the  other,  there  is  a  reticence  arising 
from  uneasiness  and  mental  confusion.  New  facts 
about  the  world  and  humanity  have  poured  in  which 
seem  to  contradict  the  old  doctrine  ;  and  the  Church, 
caught  between  this  clash  of  views,  has  not,  on  the 

37 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

subject,  found  its  mind  or  its  voice.  But  it  is  time 
it  did,  for  the  theme  is  vital.  What  we  think  about 
sin  has  everything  to  do  with  what  we  think  about 
God  ;  everything  to  do  with  our  conduct  towards 
His  creatures. 

First  of  all,  have  we  any  valid  reason  for  recasting 
the  old  ideas  on  this  subject  ?  Have  we  any  new  light  ? 
any  new  facts  or  experiences  to  which  that  earher 
world,  which  gave  us  our  creeds  and  dogmas,  had  not 
access  ?  Has  collective  humanity,  grown  taller, 
augmented  its  vision  power  so  as  to  be  able  to  see 
farther  ?  Has  there  been  in  the  interval  any  develop- 
ment of  that  moral  faculty  which  is  primarily  concerned 
with  the  question  ?  In  a  word,  is  our  age  competent 
to  pronounce  a  new  judgment  ?  It  would  argue, 
surely,  a  false  modesty  to  deny  or  even  to  doubt  this. 
It  is  simply  the  first  fact  we  encounter.  Not  simply 
is  our  age  the  one  with  the  longest  human  experience 
behind  it,  but  it  is  one  in  which  new  sciences  have 
arisen  for  the  study  of  that  experience.  We  know, 
as  no  previous  age  has  known,  the  story  of  human 
development.  Geology,  psychology,  sociology,  anthro- 
pology, have  opened  up  hitherto  undreamed-of  stores 
of  information,  all  bearing  upon  this  one  topic. 
No  one,  whether  cleric  or  layman,  can  pronounce  on 
it — at  least  with  any  chance  of  being  Hstened  to  by 
cultivated  persons — without  having  studied  these 
sources  and  considered  their  verdict.  But  there  is 
much  more  than  that.  In  addition  to  what  science 
offers,  we  have  a  new  and  enormously  valuable  con- 
tribution to  the  subject  derived  from  the  later  practice 
of  mankind.     For  sin  is  an  affair,  not  of  theology 

38 


Sin  and  the  Ideal 

only,  but  of  human  conduct  and  misconduct.  It  is  the 
thing  which  occupies  our  police-courts,  our  prison 
arrangements ;  which  has  to  be  guarded  against 
and  dealt  with  in  our  neighbour  and  in  ourselves. 
And  we  are  dealing  with  it  on  theories  which  differ 
from  those  of  our  fathers,  and  with  results  that  are 
in  themselves  a  revelation. 

Our  age,  then,  has  something  of  its  own  to  say 
on  the  doctrine  of  sin.  But  before  inquiring  what  that 
is  it  may  be  well  to  remind  ourselves  of  what  the 
Church  doctrine  is  on  this  subject,  or  at  least  what 
it  has  been.  The  Church  postulates  a  fall  of  man  in 
his  ancestor  Adam,  and  a  thence-derived  original 
sin  which  exposes  him  to  the  wrath  of  God.  Says 
the  Westminster  Confession  on  this  head  :  "By  their 
sin  they  fell  from  their  original  righteousness,  and  so 
became  dead  in  sins,  and  wholly  defiled  in  all  the 
faculties  and  parts  of  their  soul  and  body."  Catho- 
licism, it  must  be  acknowledged,  has  not  gone  as 
far  as  the  Protestants  and  Puritans  in  this  matter. 
Its  doctrine  is  of  a  fall  and  a  defiling,  but  not  of 
so  complete  a  character.  As  St.  Bernard  puts  it : 
"  The  fine  gold  has  become  dim,  but  it  is  still  gold  ; 
the  beauteous  colour  has  faded,  but  it  is  not  altogether 
effaced."  From  this  ruin  the  elect  by  the  operation 
of  grace  are  saved  from  the  Divine  wrath  ;  but  the 
non-elect — or  amongst  Arminians  those  who  refuse 
salvation  or  who  fall  from  grace — are  exposed  to 
eternal  damnation.  How  hopeless  the  outlook  here 
is,  according  to  both  Protestant  and  CathoHc  theology, 
may  be  illustrated  by  two  citations.  The  Anglican 
Pearson  says,  in  his  work  on  the  Creed  :   ^  But  in  the 

39 


Life   and   the   Ideal 

reprobate  and  damned  souls  the  spot  of  sin  remaineth 
in  its  perfect  die,  the  dominion  of  sin  continueth 
in  its  absolute  power  ;  the  guilt  of  sin  abideth  in  a 
perpetual  obligation  to  eternal  pains."  What  CathoUcs 
are  still  teaching  is  illustrated  by  the  following  from 
Mr.  E.  S.  Haynes's  book  on  ''Religious  Persecution": 
"  We  came  recently  on  a  book  by  a  Jesuit  which 
informs  the  reader  that  sinners  in  hell  have  asbestos 
souls  to  ensure  their  burning  for  eternity." 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  these  ideas  have 
become  impossible  to  us  ;  impossible  to  our  science, 
impossible  to  our  moral  development.  We  know 
more  of  the  human  past  than  did  the  dogma-makers 
of  the  creeds,  and  that  knowledge  does  not  accord 
with  their  assumptions.  Darwinism  is,  on  specific 
points,  assailed  to-day  from  many  quarters,  but 
the  belief  in  a  gradual,  age-long  development  of  the 
race  from  an  inferior  animal  condition  has  now  become 
practically  universal.  Whatever  fall  there  has  been 
in  man's  history  was  a  fall  upwards.  Sin,  we  perceive, 
however  terrible  in  itself,  is  a  sign  not  so  much  of 
human  ruin  as  of  human  progress.  There  was  a  time 
when  man  was  not  good  enough  to  sin.  An  animal 
does  not  sin.  A  tiger  may  slay  and  devour  a  whole 
family,  but  we  do  not  call  it  a  sinner,  nor  does  it 
feel  Uke  one.  It  was  in  man's  climb  upward,  when  a 
moral  nature  formed  itself  in  him,  that  actions  which 
before  were  sinless  assumed  to  his  dawning  light  another 
shape.  Sin  began  in  man  with  the  dawn  of  the  ideal. 
It  was  with  the  infancy  of  the  race  as  with  our  indi- 
vidual infant ;  which,  born  a  mere  bundle  of  sensations 
and  appetites,  arrives  gradually  at  moralhood,  where 

40 


Sin  and  the  Ideal 

it  can  sin,  and  does.  A  perception  of  sin,  we  say,  is  an 
element  of  moral  progress.  There  are  no  shadows 
where  there  is  no  light.  It  is  the  saints — the  natures 
where  the  hght  shines  brightest — the  Pauls,  the  Augus- 
tines,  the  Bunyans,  who  have  the  vividest  perception 
of  their  own  and  the  world's  evil. 

It  may  be  said  here  that  to  give  the  natural  history 
of  the  moral  sense  is  not  to  define  sin  or  to  show  how 
it  should  be  dealt  with.  You  do  not  excuse  a  man's 
wTong  use  of  power  by  showing  how  he  came  by  it. 
Very  true.  And  now  we  say,  take  any  definition  of  it 
you  please,  from  metaphysics,  from  theology,  from 
psychology,  or  from  your  actual  experience  ;  paint  it 
and  its  consequences  in  the  darkest  colours  that  our 
knowledge  of  it  can  justify  ;  what  we  now  ask  is, 
how  far  will  this  conception  of  sin — your  own  and  the 
world's — tally  with  the  credal  conceptions  we  have 
cited,  or  with  the  popular  theological  ideas  that 
have  been  built  upon  them  ?  It  will  be  found  that 
our  moral  development,  coinciding  here  with  the  reve- 
lations of  science,  has  made  them  impossible.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  notion,  found  in  many  theologies, 
that  man's  sin,  since  it  is  committed  against  an  infinite 
Being,  is  therefore  infinite,  demanding  infinite  pun- 
ishment. Can  anyone  to-day  believe  that  ?  Surely 
that  is  to  take  infinity  by  the  wrong  end.  If  God 
is  infinite  anywhere,  is  He  not  infinite  in  His  love  ? 
Transfer  the  theory  to  ourselves.  Are  we  to  suppose 
that  a  child's  punishment  for  its  offences  is  to  be  pro- 
portionate to  the  superior  wisdom,  strength  and 
station  of  its  parent  ?  Does  any  father  reason  like 
that  ?     Or  take  again  the  popular  theory  that  death 

41 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

alters  all  our  relations  to  God  ;  that  the  erring,  sinful 
being  whom  His  sun  has  shone  upon  and  His  care 
protected  all  through  Ufe  will,  by  the  mere  fact  of 
dying,  face  a  different  God,  armed  only  with  terrors 
and  vengeance  !  It  is  as  if  a  mother,  who  loves  her 
child  as  long  as  it  is  awake,  should  turn  on  it  the 
hand  of  a  murderess  the  moment  it  falls  asleep. 

Sin,  in  a  moral  nature,  is  the  same  thing  in  England 
as  in  Australia,  in  one  state  of  being  as  in  any  other, 
in  this  Hfe  or  any  other  life.  And  our  common-sense, 
still  more  our  moral  faculty,  educated  by  the  long 
process  of  the  ages,  educated  most  of  all  by  the  mind 
of  Christy  knows  only  one  way  of  deahng  with  it. 
Under  that  education  we  are  giving  up  punishment, 
the  infliction  of  suffering,  as  an  end  in  itself.  Our 
first  instinct  towards  evil-doers  is  an  instinct  of  reform. 
Gone  are  the  days  when  young  people  for  their  first 
offence  were  hanged  in  batches  at  Newgate.  We 
invade  our  criminal  districts  with  missionaries,  with 
schools,  with  Barnardo  agencies,  with  methods  of 
rescue  and  reclamation.  We  beHeve  in  the  salvability 
of  our  worst  human  material,  and  work  for  it.  And 
the  results  prove  the  value  of  the  method.  To  hate  a 
man,  to  pursue  him  with  vengeance,  because  he  has 
sinned  against  us  or  the  community  is,  we  instinctively 
feel,  a  lowering  of  our  own  nature,  a  sin  against  him 
and  against  the  highest.  We  inflict  suffering  in 
the  belief  of  its  salutary  quality,  and  accept  the 
world's  suffering  as,  in  mysterious  ways,  working 
towards  a  salutary^  saving  end — the  belief  which  was 
hammered  into  poor  Oscar  Wilde,  of  which  he  speaks 
in  his  ^*De  Profundis '' :  "Now  it  seems  to  me  that 

42 


Sin  and  the   Ideal 

love  of  some  kind  is  the  only  possible  explanation 
of  the  extraordinary  amount  of  suffering  that  there  is 
in  the  world." 

In  this  belief  we  select  men  of  high  character  as 
governors  of  our  prisons,  and  seek  to  make  these 
places,  as  far  as  possible,  reformatories.  In  this 
connection,  one  cannot  but  note  the  extraordinary 
confusion  of  ideas  which,  in  current  theology,  makes 
God,  in  His  dealing  with  sinful  souls  beyond  the  grave, 
elect  as  their  governor  a  supposed  invincible  rebel 
against  Himself,  the  worst  character  in  the  universe  ! 
Surely  it  is  time  we  dismissed  from  our  thoughts 
these  barbarities  of  an  ignorant  age  ;  that  we  ceased  to 
insult  the  Eternal  Love  and  Wisdom  by  attributing 
to  it  cruelties  and  stupidities  that  would  not  be 
tolerated  for  a  moment  amongst  ourselves  1 

These  thoughts,  which  the  moral  consciousness  of 
our  time  has  pressed  to  the  front,  have  been  at  the  back 
of  the  brains  of  the  best  people  in  all  ages.  To  the 
mighty  intellect  of  Aristotle  evil  had  no  independent 
existence.  It  was  to  him  a  privation,  an  abatement  of 
the  good,  a  depreciation  of  excellence.  His  idea 
corresponded  to  that  contained  in  the  New  Testament 
word  for  sin — hamartia,  Hterally  "  a  missing  of  the 
mark."  Augustine,  when  he  ceases  to  be  theological 
and  becomes  simply  Christian,  thinks  in  the  same  way. 
**  God,"  says  he,  **  deemed  it  better  to  do  good  with 
evil,  rather  than  not  to  permit  evil  at  all."  And 
again,  *'  If  it  were  not  good  that  there  should  be 
evil,  evil  would  in  no  wise  have  been  permitted  by 
Omnipotent  Goodness."  To  this  let  us  add  that  word 
of  his  in   the   "  De   Trinitate,"   where,   speaking  of 

43 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

the  sacrifiGe  of  Christ,  he  says  :  "  Would  the  Father 
have  delivered  up  His  Son  for  us  if  He  had  not  been 
already  appeased?  I  see  that  the  Father  loved  us 
before  the  Son  died  for  us."  The  mystics  in  every 
age  have  believed  in  the  all-conquering  love  of  God. 
Take  this  word  of  that  lovely  saint  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  the  Anchoress  JuHan  of  Norwich:  ''For  I 
saw  no  manner  of  wrath  in  God,  whether  for  short 
time  nor  for  long.  .  .  .  For  God  is  all  that  is 
good  to  my  sight,  and  God  loveth  all  that  He  hath 
made.  For  in  mankind  that  is  to  be  saved  is  compre- 
hended all — that  is  to  say,  all  that  is  made.  .  .  For 
in  man  is  God  and  God  is  in  all."  To  the  same  effect 
is  the  testimony  of  that  noble  early  Baptist,  John  Smyth, 
who  says  in  his  "  Long  Confession  "  :  "  As  no  man 
begetteth  his  child  to  the  gallows,  nor  no  potter 
maketh  a  pot  to  break  it,  so  God  doth  not  predestinate 
any  man  to  destruction."  The  instinct  to  save  men, 
which  the  Christ-spirit  has  implanted  in  us,  compels 
us  to  believe  in  God's  instinct.  If  General  Booth 
with  his  Salvationists  found  themselves  in  contact  with 
poor  souls  in  the  condition  to  which  his  official  theology 
reduces  them,  he  would  set  the  whole  Army  at  work 
on  a  mission  of  healing  and  reclaiming.  Can  the 
servant  here  be  greater  or  better  than  his  Lord  ? 

The  doctrine  we  here  preach  is  essentially  that  of 
Christianity;  is  that  of  its  entire  spirit  and  method; 
is  the  only  one  that  can  be  deduced  from  it.  Christ's 
way  with  sinners  was  to  love  them,  to  believe  in  their 
recoverabiUty.  He  tackled  the  outcasts  as  an  object- 
lesson  in  the  possibilities  of  a  loved  humanity.  To 
preach  His  Gospel  to  men  is  to  announce  your  faith  in  a 

44 


Sin  and   the   Ideal 

Divine  something  in  them  which  will  respond  to  this 
Divine  something  you  bring  to  them.  It  is  this  spirit 
which  makes  Christianity  the  most  daring  of  optimisms  ; 
which  puts  it  into  magnificent  contrast  with  the  fatalism 
of  the  East  and  the  fatalism  of  the  West.  While 
Schopenhauer  declares  you  can  no  more  change  the 
character  of  a  bad  man  than  the  character  of  a  tiger  ; 
while  Nietzsche  sneers  at  the  weak  and  exalts  force 
and  repression,  the  Gospel  goes  on  hoping  and  goes 
on  saving.  Sin  is  the  old  part  of  a  man,  the  animal 
part  of  him,  the  reminiscence  of  the  slime  out  of 
which  he  has  risen.  And  the  spiritual  is  the  new  part 
of  him  ;  the  Divine  part  which  is  slowly  filtering 
into  him  as  his  faculties  are  prepared  for  its  reception ; 
the  part  which,  as  yet,  has  only  begun  its  history, 
but  which  is  destined  to  fill  it  in  the  time  to  come. 

This  doctrine  of  sin  is  the  only  one  that  works  in 
our  own  daily  contact  with  life  and  with  our  fellows. 
You  do  no  good  by  hammering  at  the  evil  in  humanity, 
whether  the  humanity  is  in  your  own  household  or 
outside.  You  can  hit  back  at  your  man,  and  then, 
in  the  sum  of  the  day's  actions,  there  has  been  your 
insult  or  wrong  added  to  his.  Christ  has  taught 
us  the  folly  of  all  this  ;  nay,  the  best  men  had  learned 
it  before.  We  read  of  Lycurgus  that  when  his  eye 
had  been  put  out  by  an  enemy,  he  got  the  man  into 
his  power,  but  instead  of  taking  revenge  on  him 
(Origen  tells  the  story)  "  he  ceased  not  to  use  all  his 
arts  of  persuasion  until  he  induced  him  to  become  a 
philosopher."  That  was  Christianity  before  Christ, 
the  one  and  only  sane  way  of  deaHng  with  evil. 

It  is  the  way  of  trust,  of  trust  in  the  eternity  of 

45 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

goodness,  of  its  all-conquering  power.  "Trust  the 
people,"  said  Gladstone,  and  the  word  was  the  intro- 
duction of  Christianity  into  politics.  Under  that 
influence  we  shall  learn  to  trust  not  only  our  own 
people,  but  all  other  peoples  ;  to  trust  the  French, 
the  Germans,  the  Russians,  the  Chinese.  And  they  will 
return  the  trust.  The  rise  of  that  spirit  will  be  the 
death  of  armaments,  the  death  of  wars.  WilHam 
Penn  trusted  the  Indians,  and  they  hurt  neither  a 
hair  of  his  head  nor  a  stone  of  his  property.  You  may 
trust  goodness  as  you  trust  radium  or  oxygen.  More, 
for  these  may  change,  but  this  is  eternal. 

And  if  we  trust  goodness  in  men,  shall  we  distrust 
the  goodness  in  God  ?  Think  of  religious  schemes, 
ceremonials,  theological  contrivances  to  save  men  from 
God  !  As  if  the  one  thing  wanted  were  not  to  open 
His  approach  to  us,  to  let  in  the  full  current  of  His 
love  !  The  want  of  the  age  is  a  new  faith  in  God  ; 
a  faith  in  Him  for  ourselves  and  our  neighbour  ; 
a  faith  which  covers  his  and  our  affairs  for  to-day ;  his 
and  our  affairs  for  time  and  for  eternity. 


46 


FAITH    AND    THE    IDEAL 

We  have  met  people  who  could  get  up  no  enthusiasm 
about  justification  by  faith.  It  was  a  dogma  to  be 
accepted,  but  they  saw  in  it  nothing  to  exult  about. 
That  is  because  our  theologians  have  been  such  bad 
teachers  of  theology.  They  smother  us  with  words 
which  they  fail  to  make  alive.  For  this  is  a  doctrine 
to  stir  us  when  we  do  understand  it.  It  made  Luther's 
blood  leap  in  his  veins.  It  meant  for  him  that,  after 
all  the  torture  of  ceremonial,  fast  and  vigil  to  get 
himself  right  with  God,  he  found  the  whole  business 
centred  in  just  trusting  God.  The  formidable  Being 
whose  wrath  he  had  been  labouring  to  propitiate 
needed  no  efforts  of  that  kind.  He  was  already  his 
friend.  God  meant  good  to  him,  had  done  so  from 
the  first.  He  was  to  do  his  best  as  a  man  in  the  world 
because  God  loved  him  and  beheved  in  him  ;  beUeved 
in  his  possibility  of  being  and  doing  something.  That, 
for  Luther  and  the  rest  of  us,  is  the  true  saving  faith. 
The  life  of  faith  means  a  faith  on  both  sides.  We 
believe  in  God,  and  God  believes  in  us  ;  believes  in  us 
as  worth  saving,  as  worth  doing  His  best  with,  as 
having  possibilities  that  make  us  worth  all  His  care. 

That,  however  it  has  been  hitherto  obscured,  is  the 
ultimate  Gospel  truth  of  which  the  New  Testament 

47 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

story  is  the  one  magnificent  illustration.  It  is  the 
story  of  the  worth  of  God  and  the  worth  of  man  ; 
of  their  intimate  relations  ;  of  the  humanness  of  God 
and  the  divineness  of  hmnanity.  The  story  of  Jesus, 
the  apostoHc  testimony,  the  wonders  of  believing, 
loving,  serving,  wrought  in  the  Church,  all,  come  to 
that,  are  opened  to  us  by  this  interpretation.  They 
are  phases  of  faith,  of  man's  belief  in  God,  and  God's 
beUef  in  man. 

We  cannot  make  too  much  of  faith.  It  is  the 
principle  which  makes  the  world  go  round.  A  man 
may  call  himself  unbeliever  till  he  is  black  in  the  face. 
He  is  simply  proclaiming  his  own  absurdity.  He 
begins  by  believing  and  ends  with  it.  There  is  nothing 
else  to  be  done.  Consider,  to  begin  with,  on  what 
terms  we  know  ourselves  in  a  world  at  all.  We  take  it 
all  on  trust.  We  have  just  the  evidence  of  our  senses  ; 
certain  impressions  of  touch,  hearing,  sight ;  certain 
vibrations  impinging  on  certain  nerves;  and  there, 
practically,  is  our  world.  How  do  we  know  that  these 
sensations  represent  anything  actual ;  or  that  the 
outside  actuality  has  any  real  correspondence  with 
what  we  feel  ?  What  is  the  "  thing  in  itself,"  and 
how  do  we  get  to  it  ?  Philosophers  have  plagued 
themselves  endlessly  over  the  question,  and  come 
no  nearer  to  it.  There  is,  indeed,  only  one  answer  here. 
We  live  by  faith  ;  by  faith  that  we  are  not  being 
befooled ;  that  we  are  in  contact  with  actuahty, 
though  with  only  an  imperfect  apprehension  of  it ;  that 
our  world,  and  the  mind  we  carry  to  it,  are  two  parts 
of  a  truth  that  can  be  believed  in. 

Men   talk   sometimes   of   science   as   of  something 

48 


Faith  and  the  Ideal 

that  is  outside  the  sphere  of  faith.  Theology,  they 
will  say,  is  an  affair  of  faith ;  science,  on  the  contrary, 
offers  us  certainty.  And  theology,  in  its  vagaries, 
in  its  queer  assumptions,  has  given  people  abundant 
excuse  for  making  the  assertion.  But  it  is  an  entirely 
wrong  one.  Science,  like  everj^thing  else,  lives  by 
faith.  When  you  build  a  laboratory,  when  you  con- 
struct a  telescope,  when  you  analyse  a  chemical  com- 
pound, you  are  at  every  step  proclaiming  your  belief 
in  the  invisible.  You  are  taking  for  granted  a  rational 
order  of  things,  according  to  which  the  things  you 
handle  will  act  in  such  and  such  a  way  and  not  other- 
wise. You  are  supposing  a  law  of  cause  and  effect,  a 
persistence,  a  fidelity  in  the  quahties  of  things.  You 
take  for  granted  that  your  mathematics  will  coincide 
with  the  cosmic  mathematics.  At  every  step  you 
trust  your  universe  ;  you  endow  it  with  a  moraUty, 
with  the  quahties  of  steadfastness,  of  conformity  to 
law.  You  stretch  your  mind  to  meet  the  mind  you 
find  there. 

Faith  is  as  necessary  as  breathing  ;  one  may  say 
as  vital.  For  it  is  a  vital  force.  What  power  there 
is  in  it  is  seen  even  when  it  is  allied  to  superstitions 
and  errors  ;  where,  spite  of  the  absurdities  to  which 
it  is  yoked,  it  still  helps  people  to  live.  We  are  as  yet 
only  just  beginning  to  understand  its  power  as  a 
function  of  the  soul.  Our  faith-healers,  our  "  Christian 
Scientists,"  are,  maybe,  unscientific  dabblers,  but 
dabblers  in  a  force  as  sure  as  radium  and  more  wonder- 
ful. Theirs  is  the  oldest  of  stories.  Listen  here  to 
Origen.  Says  he,  in  the  "  Contra  Celsum  "  :  "  And 
some  gave  evidence  of  their  having  received  through 

49  !> 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

this  faith  a  marvellous  power  by  the  cures  which  they 
perform,  invoking  no  other  name  over  those  who 
need  their  help  than  that  of  the  God  of  all  things,  and 
of  Jesus,  along  with  a  mention  of  His  history.  For 
by  these  means  we,  too,  have  seen  many  persons 
freed  from  grievous  calamities,  and  from  distractions 
of  mind,  and  madness,  and  countless  other  ills,  which 
could  be  cured  neither  by  men  nor  devils."  One 
could  cite  half  the  Fathers  to  the  same  effect.  About 
the  faith  they  preached,  as  a  system  of  doctrine, 
you  might  urge  this  objection  or  that.  One  thing 
is  undeniable  :  the  faith  was  a  healer. 

With  this  said  about  faith  as  a  force,  let  us  now  ask 

more  specifically  as  to  the  sphere  of  its  action.     What 

we  have  here  to  note  may  surprise  some  of  our  readers, 

but  let  them  think  about  it  and  they  will  find  it  true. 

The  chief  and  most  important  sphere  of  faith  is  in 

ourselves.     Though    that    is    not    the    whole    truth. 

In  its   entirety  our  statement  should  be  :    "  The  true 

sphere  of  faith  is  in  the  Divine  self  that  is  being  revealed 

in  us."     The  belief  that  is  to  save  us,  in  all  senses  of 

the  word,  is  a  belief  in  that  highest  verdict  of  the  soul 

as  it  comes  in  contact  with  fact  and  with  Hfe.  We  have 

seen  already  that  we  have  no  surety  about  the  outside 

world  except  on  the  supposition  that  the  impression 

of  it  on  our  consciousness  is,  so  far  as  it  goes,  a  true  one. 

And  we  have  no  science  except  on  the  basis  that  the 

reason  within  us  is  a  true  reflection  of  the  reason 

outside  us.    But  our  principle  goes  a  great  deal  further. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  show  that  it  is  the  basis — the 

only  enduring  basis — of  a  healthy  rehgion.     It  is  the 

only  principle  that   can   save  us   from   ecclesiastical 

50 


Faith  and  the  Ideal 

despotisms  while  securing  to  us  the  full  fruition  of  the 
spiritual  Hfe.  It  is  by  the  clear  understanding  of  this 
principle  that  we  are  able  to  put  in  their  proper  place 
the  various  forms  of  religious  authority,  to  ascertain 
what  their  pretensions  amount  to. 

In  religion  we  in  Christendom  are  confronted  by 
two  great  outside  powers,  the  Bible  and  the  Church. 
Both  in  their  day  have  been  held  to  be  infallible 
and  their  authority  absolute.  Over  vast  areas 
of  the  Western  world  these  claims  are  still  made. 
In  Protestantism  there  are  Churches  committed, 
so  far  as  their  official  documents  go,  to  the  belief  that 
the  Bible  is  inerrant ;  there  are  multitudes  of  excellent 
people  who  regard  it  as  the  last  and  final  word  of  God. 
And  those  of  us  who  owe  our  own  selves  to  that  Divine 
Word,  who  find  in  what  it  reveals  of  God  and  Christ 
and  the  Kingdom  the  breath  by  which  our  souls  Hve, 
will  never  speak  of  these  Scriptures  other  than  with 
reverence  and  gratitude  ;  will  find  in  them  always  an 
inspiration  which  no  other  book  contains.  But  it  is 
these  Scriptures  themselves  which  teach  us  how 
we  should  use  them.  They  point  us  to  the  final  judge 
of  them,  the  inward,  divine  Spirit,  namely,  out  of  which 
they  came  and  by  which  they  are  inspired.  And  it  is 
this  Divine  Spirit,  abiding  in  the  enhghtened  soul, 
ever  opening  on  it  new  truth  and  Hght  as  it  is  able 
to  bear  them,  which  interprets  and  judges  the  Scrip- 
tures. It  shows  us  the  method  of  the  BibHcal  evolu- 
tion ;  how  we  have  here  deposited,  stratum  after 
stratum,  the  successive  levels  of  religious  experience 
and  enlightenment  to  which  the  writers  of  the  book 
had  been  hfted  in  the  slow,  gradual  process  of  Divine 

5^ 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

education  ;  shows  us  the  ascending  moraHty  of  these 
stages,  from  the  tribal  vengeances  of  the  imprecatory 
psalms  to  the  Divine  forgiveness  of  Calvary  ;  from 
the  eye  for  an  eye  maxims  to  the  love  which  forgives 
all  and  serves  all.  By  the  same  illumination — for  all 
truth  is  spiritual  and  Divine — we  perceive  the  mental 
limitations  of  the  Bible  writers  ;  how  their  treasure 
was  committed  to  earthen  vessels  ;  how  their  science 
has  been  followed  by  a  better  science  ;  how  their  pre- 
dictions, in  some  instances,  have  been  falsified  by 
events  ;  and  how,  consequently,  we  are  compelled 
by  the  Divine  law  working  in  our  minds  to  judge 
these  earher,  growing  revelations  by  the  later  ones 
given  to  ourselves.  Here,  we  say,  our  faith  must  be 
in  ourselves  ;  in  ourselves  as  portions  of  the  ever- 
revealing  mind  of  the  Spirit,  whose  promise  is  to  lead 
the  faithful  into  all  truth. 

And  the  principle  which  works  thus  in  relation  to 
the  Bible  is  not  less  clear  in  relation  to  the  Church. 
The  religious  spirit  of  to-day,  which  is  slowly  winning 
its  freedom  from  a  false  view  of  the  Scriptures,  has  an 
equal  battle  to  fight  against  that  false  view  of  the 
Church  and  its  authority  which  is  asserted  by  Rome 
and  its  alUes.  Cardinal  Manning,  in  one  of  his  sermons, 
proceeds  on  the  supposition  that  the  dogmas  of  the 
Church  are  to  rehgion  what  the  axioms  of  Euchd  are 
to  mathematics.  As  in  the  one  sphere,  so  in  the 
other  you  must  begin,  he  says,  with  some  primary 
assumptions.  He  forgets  the  difference  between  the 
two.  The  axioms  hold  their  place  because  the  human 
reason  in  every  fresh  generation  reaffirms  their  validity. 
It  does  no  such  thing  with  the  dogmas.     The  only 

52 


Faith  and  the  Ideal 

authority  in  this  world,  for  religion  as  for  everything 
else,  is  the  collective  judgment  of  that  human  con- 
sciousness which,  divinely  directed,  acting  according 
to  the  divinely  imposed  laws  of  thought,  is  ever 
growing  and  ever  learning.  It  is  one  thing  to  beheve 
in  that  judgment  as,  reinforced  by  all  that  has  since 
been  learned  of  man  and  the  universe,  it  pronounces 
its  latest  decisions.  It  is  a  very  different  thing  to 
believe,  as  Rome  asks  us  to  do,  in  the  judgments 
pronounced  fifteen  centuries  ago.  To  make  that 
assertion  is  to  deny  God's  continuous  work  in  the  soul  ; 
is  to  make  Christianity,  so  interpreted,  impossible  to 
the  best  minds.  It  is  to  drive  these  minds  into  that 
mournful  spiritual  exile  in  which  to-day  so  many 
dwell.  Lamartine,  speaking  of  the  scepticism  of 
Mirabeau,  has  on  this  point  an  illuminating  passage. 
Says  he  :  "  The  great  men  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  lived  and  died  in  an  appearance  of  irreligion 
which  was  not  impiety,  but  was  the  solitude  of  the 
soul.  ...  It  was  not  atheism  ;  it  was  the  empty 
space  between  two  altars,  one  of  which,  the  old  cult, 
no  longer  existed,  and  the  other  of  which  was  not  yet 
born."  What  Rome,  acting  on  its  false  idea,  has 
become  for  the  modern  world  is  vividly  exhibited 
in  a  passage  which  Liszt,  in  his  best  intellectual  period, 
wrote  in  1838  :  "  The  Roman  Cathohc  Church, 
occupied  in  mumbling  the  dead  letter  of  her  law  ; 
knowing  only  ban  and  curse  where  she  should  bless 
and  elevate  ;  destitute  of  all  feeling  for  the  deep 
yearning  which  animates  the  younger  generations ; 
acknowledging  neither  art  nor  science  ;  incapable  of 
anything  useful     .     .     .     the  Catholic  Church  as  she 

53 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

now  stands  has  entirely  alienated  from  herself  the 
esteem  and  affection  of  the  present  age.  People,  life 
and  art  keep  away  from  her,  and  she  seems  doomed 
to  perish  in  oblivion." 

Bible  and  Church,  we  say,  derive  their  authority 
in  the  first  place  from  the  human  spirit.  Their  state- 
ments, their  judgments,  are  outflows  of  that  spirit. 
The  divine  in  them  came  through  the  human,  as  a 
development  of  the  human.  But  if  we  are  to  recognise 
a  divine  in  the  past  we  must  recognise  it  not  less  in  the 
present.  The  education  still  goes  on.  The  voice 
of  God  has  not  ceased  in  the  soul.  All  ascertained 
truths,  all  moral  progress  are  forms  of  the  one  inspira- 
tion. By  this  light,  the  inner  hght  as  the  early 
Quakers  well  termed  it,  we  judge  all  things.  A  theology 
which  contradicts  it,  by  whatsoever  authority  it  is 
backed,  stands  self-condemned.  What  is  impossible 
to  our  moral  nature  is,  we  know,  impossible  to  God. 
Thus,  to  take  an  example  of  what  we  mean,  the 
mediaeval  hell  falls  out  from  its  sheer  lack  of  morality. 
God's  hell,  whatever  it  may  be,  must  be  in  accord 
with  His  nature,  which  is  Love. 

This  faith  in  man,  as  carrying  in  him  the  beginnings 
of  a  Divine  nature,  in  proportion  as  it  is  fairly  grasped, 
will  be  the  nerve  of  mission  work  at  home  and  abroad. 
Science  is  showing  us  there  is  no  such  thing  as  waste 
or  useless  matter  in  the  world.  What  used  to  be 
called  "  waste  products"  are  everywhere  being  turned 
into  new  values.  And  this  doctrine  of  *'  no  waste  " 
in  manufacture  is  the  doctrine  above  all  others  which 
the  Church  wants  to-day.  We  want  a  new  belief  in 
humanity,  in  its  spiritual  ancestry,  in  its  recoverability, 

54 


Faith  and  the   Ideal 

in  the  Divine  life  that  is  dormant  in  it.  TertulUan, 
sternest  of  the  early  theologians,  is  sound  on  this 
point.  "Wherever,"  says  he,  "the  soul  comes  to 
itself,  as  out  of  a  surfeit,  or  a  sleep,  or  a  sickness,  and 
attains  something  of  its  natural  soundness,  it  speaks 
of  God." 

This  highest  self,  which  judges  Church  and  Bible, 
and  which  frames  our  idea  of  God,  is  the  final  arbiter 
of  Christianity,  the  rock  on  which  its  evidences  rest. 
The  strength  of  the  Gospel  is  not,  where  divines  have 
so  often  placed  it,  in  prophecies,  in  prodigies,  in  signs 
and  wonders.  It  is  in  the  sheer  might  of  its  moral 
appeal.  It  is  its  appeal  to  the  ideal  in  man.  Here 
we  see  a  love  beyond  our  own,  a  God-like  purity,  an 
enthusiasm  for  God  and  holiness  which  spreads  like 
a  fire  amongst  men;  a  glorious  spiritual  energy 
which  transforms  those  early  believers,  and  which, 
as  we  open  ourselves  to  it,  transforms  us.  A  thousand 
things  connected  with  the  story  may  have  to  go. 
They  are  accidents  of  time  and  place.  But  love  is  no 
accident;  nor  is  purity,  nor  God's  presence  felt  in 
the  soul.  The  soul  here  meets  its  heavenly  kindred. 
Here  faith  finds  itself  at  home.  And  thus  a  man  is 
justified  by  faith.  With  its  eyes  he  looks  upon  God, 
the  universe  and  himself,  and  finds  this  trinity  in  a 
glorious  accord.  In  it  he  daily  exults,  for  it  assures 
him  that  all  is  well  for  life  and  death,  for  time  and 
eternity. 


55 


VI 

INTELLECT  AND  THE  MORAL  IDEAL 

"  Clever  men,"  said  Huxley  once,  "  are  as  common 
as  blackberries  ;  the  rare  thing  is  to  find  a  good  one." 
The  famous  scientist  here  puts  before  us  the  whole 
question  of  morality  and  intellect.  He  himself  offers 
us  an  example  of  the  distinction  between  them.  Of 
his  mental  force  there  was  never  any  question.  It  was 
there,  beating  in  the  brain  of  him,  to  use  as  he  chose. 
But  character  !  What  a  business  he  found  the  winning 
of  that!  In  his  touching  letter  to  Kingsley — one  of 
the  sincerest  and  most  moving  of  self-confessions — 
he  tells  us  something  of  the  struggle.  "  Kicked  into 
the  world,"  without  proper  guidance,  "  I  confess  to 
my  shame  few  men  have  drunk  deeper  of  all  kinds 
of  sin."  From  that  slough  he  was  saved  by  three 
things.  Carlyle's  "  Sartor  Resartus  "  taught  him  that 
"  a  deep  sense  of  rehgion  was  compatible  with  the 
entire  absence  of  theology."  After  religion  he  puts 
the  pursuit  of  scientific  truth,  and  then  a  pure  love. 
The  mind  was  a  gift,  the  character  a  hard-won  victory. 
We  have  here  not  only  the  history  of  a  man,  but  the 
history  of  a  world.  The  human  development  has 
followed  along  these  separate  lines.  Man  has  been 
pushed  along  by  two  forces — what  we  may  call  his 
brain  power  and  his  heart  power.  Nothing  is  more 
interesting   than   to    watch   the   interplay   of   these 

56 


Intellect  and  the   Moral   Ideal 

two;  their  twin  development,  their  mutual  relations, 
their  relative  importance.  The  problem  of  civiHsation 
to-day  is  wrapped  up  in  their  separate  and  their 
mutual  action. 

The  education  of  the  human  race,  as  German 
philosophy  has  so  abundantly  taught  us,  has  been  an 
affair  of  unconscious  co-operation.  One  department 
of  it  has  been  put  out  to  one  race,  another  to  another. 
For  illustration  look  at  Athens  and  then  at  Jerusalem. 
In  Greece  we  find  the  first-class  minds  of  the  ancient 
world.  Thales,  Pythagoras,  Democritus,  Socrates, 
Plato,  Aristotle,  Pheidias,  Praxiteles,  Archimedes, 
Thucydides,  are,  in  their  several  ways,  prophets  of 
the  intellect.  They  stand  for  philosophy,  physics, 
mathematics,  art,  music,  politics,  the  whole  sphere  of 
things  with  which  the  mind  can  busy  itself.  They  are 
the  pioneers  of  research,  openers  of  the  ways  in  which 
truth-seekers  have  been  travelling  ever  since.  When 
you  pass  from  Greece  to  Palestine  you  find  yourself 
in  another  world.  Open  on  Isaiah  or  Micah,  read  the 
New  Testament  from  cover  to  cover,  and  you  will 
find  scarce  a  word  about  mentality.  There  is  nothing 
about  philosophy,  or  geometry,  or  music,  or  painting, 
or  the  science  of  history  or  the  science  of  poHtics. 
If  you  kept  to  the  Bible,  you  would  learn  nothing 
worth  knowing  about  the  physical  universe ;  no  hint  of 
the  methods  by  which  its  secrets  are  to  be  disclosed. 
Summing  the  two  up,  you  may  say  :  Greece  is  all  for 
knowledge  ;  Palestine  is  all  for  character.  We  are 
learning  to-day  the  immeasurable  debt  we  owe  to 
both.  When  you  ask,  "  Which  is  the  mightier ; 
which  the  more  important  ? "   Huxley's  statement, 

57 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

remembering  what   he   stood   for,   may  well  set  us 
thinking. 

The  tremendous  insistence  of  the  Judaean  prophets 
and  apostles  upon  character  as  the  one  thing  needful 
is  simply  the  putting  in  another  way  what  our  nine- 
teenth-century scientist  put  in  his — that  cleverness 
is  inferior  to  goodness,  that  in  the  order  of  world- 
values  the  moral  is  over  the  mental.  Intellect  is  a 
sort  of  brute  force  ;  the  whole  question  is  how  you  are 
going  to  use  it ;  and  that  question  has  to  be  answered 
from  something  beyond  the  mental.  The  unconscious 
judgment  of  the  world  here  has  expressed  itself  in  the 
conception  of  the  devil  as  a  first-class  intellect — 
and  as  bad  as  he  can  be.  The  world  has  had  some 
brilHant  understudies  of  him  in  these  respects  which  go 
to  confirm  the  idea.  You  cannot  decide  whether  a 
man  is  going  to  be  a  blessing  or  a  curse  by  the  size  of  his 
brain.  Of  itself  it  may  be  so  much  force  off  the  rails — 
a  blind,  devastating  force.  A  man  may  have  a  superb 
calculating  faculty,  a  genius  for  combination,  a  fascinat- 
ing eloquence,  and  they  may  serve  the  spirit  of  a 
buccaneer.  There  have  been  men  of  that  kind  in  abun- 
dance. Let  anyone,  for  instance,  study  the  Renais- 
sance period  in  Italy.  It  is  like  looking  into  a  midnight 
thunderstorm.  At  every  point  there  are  lightning 
flashes  of  wondrous  genius,  which  serve  only  to  reveal 
the  more  vividly  the  blackness  of  the  moral  depravity. 
On  the  throne  of  the  Vatican  we  see  Alexander  VL, 
the  Borgia,  living  in  abominable  relations  with  his 
daughter  Lucretia — the  official  representative  of  Christ 
committing  every  crime  that  was  possible  to  man. 
We  see  Benvenuto  CelUni  doing  matchless  work  as 

58 


Intellect  and  the   Moral   Ideal 

artist,  and  then  describing  with  gusto  his  debaucheries, 
his  murders.  MachiavelH  writes  his  "  Prince,"  in  which 
he  instructs  rulers  in  the  whole  science  of  despotism 
and  devilry.  Never  were  there  more  brilHant  brains  or 
blacker  hearts.  In  later  days  there  has  been  no  greater 
intellect  than  that  of  Napoleon,  at  least  in  wide  regions 
of  mentality;  yet  Taine,  that  dispassionate  historian, 
has  surely  not  exaggerated  when  he  speaks  of  his 
character  as  that  of  an  "  egotism,  active  and  invading, 
proportioned  to  the  activity  and  range  of  his  faculties, 
exaggerated  by  success  and  absolute  power,  until  it 
becomes  a  monster,  raising  in  the  midst  of  human 
society  a  colossal  *  I  '  which  brooks  no  resistance, 
which  crushes  all  independence." 

Yet  Napoleon  beheved  in  character,  and  some  of 
the  best  testimonies  to  the  importance  of  it,  and  to 
the  sources  of  it,  come  from  him.  He  knew  he 
could  not  win  victories  without  it.  Everything, 
he  held,  depended  on  the  morale  of  an  army.  And  the 
morale  was  an  affair  of  the  soul.  "  It  is  not  for  five 
sous,"  said  he  once,  "or  for  a  vain  distinction  that 
a  man  will  risk  his  life.  It  is  in  speaking  to  his 
soul  that  one  electrifies  a  man."  He  was  equally 
clear  as  to  the  source  of  character.  Metternich  recounts 
his  remark  to  him  that  "  an  atheist  of  good  faith 
never  existed."  And  studying  the  condition  of  France, 
he  said  to  Roederer,  "  How  shall  we  get  morality? 
There  is  only  one  way;  it  is  to  re-establish  religion." 
He  was  here  of  the  mind  of  Cromwell,  who  formed 
his  Ironsides,  not  of  the  roysterers  and  tapsters  who 
swelled  the  Royalist  ranks,  but  of  men  who  had  faith 
in  them  and  a  morality  built  upon  it. 

59 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

And  here  we  come  upon  a  capital  truth  in  this 
relation.  When  we  see  reUgion,  as  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, bending  itself,  to  the  neglect  of  all  else,  to 
the  inner  reformation  of  man,  we  are  witnessing  not 
a  moral  movement  only,  but  also  an  intellectual. 
Even  when  it  does  not  know  it,  it  is  all  the  time 
feeding  the  intellect,  preparing  in  the  surest  way  for 
its  expansion  and  higher  activities.  To  the  age  of  high 
feeling  succeeds  by  a  sure  process  the  age  of  high 
thinking.  When  John  Knox  and  his  coadjutors  gave 
Scotland  a  religious  Hfe  instead  of  a  form,  they  unloosed 
the  Scottish  intellect,  to  make  it  then  and  ever  since 
one  of  the  greatest  intellectual  forces  of  the  world. 
Puritanism  rendered  a  hke  service  to  England  and  to 
America.  The  Eastern  States,  the  Puritan  States, 
have  been  the  mental  nerve  of  the  West.  Later  on 
Wesley  and  his  preachers  were  fertilisers  of  the  English 
mind.  There  has  never  been  a  great  revival  that 
has  not  had  a  higher  mentahty  as  an  after-product. 
The  second  or  third  generation  that  trace  back  to  it 
may  change  their  attitude  to  the  beUef  of  their  fathers, 
may  even  adopt  a  hostile  one.  All  the  same,  it  remains 
that  the  deep  inward  movement  at  the  beginning  is 
the  hidden  source  of  the  mental  products  that  succeed. 
When  you  turn  men  from  frivoHty  and  vice  to  depth 
and  seriousness  of  character,  you  have  fructified  not 
only  the  world's  soul  but  all  its  powers. 

In  saying  this  we  are  not  unaware  of  another  side 
to  the  question.  That  religion,  in  its  proper  conception, 
feeds  the  intellect  is,  we  beheve,  a  truth  of  history 
and  a  truth  of  psychology.  That,  however,  cannot 
always  be  said  of  the  Church  as  an  institution.     The 

60 


Intellect  and  the  Moral  Ideal 

Church  as  a  human  society  has  made  enormous  mistakes 
in  this  direction,  and  is  to-day  paying  for  them.  For 
a  very  long  period  it  has  misjudged  its  relation  to 
the  intellect,  with  disastrous  consequences.  At  an 
early  age  it  began  to  exercise  its  reason — at  the  time 
a  very  crude  and  uninformed  reason — upon  the 
religious  facts  before  it,  and  then  proclaimed  these 
exercises  as  an  infallible  criterion  of  faith  and  life.  It 
rationalised  Christianity  into  an  abstruse  metaphysical 
system,  from  which  it  proceeded  to  warn  off  all  further 
investigation.  The  procedure  was  a  contradiction 
in  terms.  Reason  had  had  fullest  play  in  this  con- 
structive process,  and  then  was  ordered  to  stop  short. 
As  if  it  could  !  One  might  as  well  ask  the  human 
heart  or  lungs  to  stop  functioning.  The  Church 
was  here  the  great  sceptic.  It  denied  the  Divine  order 
of  things  ;  denied  the  right  of  one  part  of  the  soul's 
equipment  to  work  with  the  other  part.  And  this  fatal 
path  was  trodden  for  centuries,  and  is  still  being  trodden. 
Lecky's  indictment  of  Papal  ascendancy  in  the  Middle 
Ages  seems  hardly  exaggerated  :  "  Every  mental 
disposition  which  philosophy  pronounces  to  be  essential 
to  legitimate  research  was  almost  uniformly  branded 
as  a  sin,  and  a  large  proportion  of  the  most  deadly 
intellectual  vices  were  deliberately  inculcated  as 
virtues.  The  theologians,  by  destroying  every  book 
that  could  generate  discussion,  by  diffusing  to  every 
field  of  knowledge  a  spirit  of  boundless  creduhty, 
and,  above  all,  by  persecuting  with  atrocious  cruelty 
those  who  differed  from  their  opinions,  succeeded 
in  almost  arresting  the  action  of  the  European  mind." 
Rome  is   still  pursuing   this   method.     Where   its 

6i 


Life   and  the  Ideal 

ascendancy  is  greatest  ignorance  is  densest,  and  that 
by  a  deliberate  system.  In  the  Papal  States  up  to  the 
time  of  their  absorption  into  the  Italian  kingdom,  scarce 
one  of  the  peasantry  was  able  to  read.  Loisy,  writing 
as  one  of  its  priests,  confesses  "  its  rock  is  to  want 
too  much  to  govern  men,  in  place  of  elevating  souls." 
And  again,  "  One  cannot  deny  the  tendency  of 
Catholicism  has  been  towards  the  effacement  of 
the  individual,  to  place  man  under  tutelage,  to  control 
all  his  activities  in  a  way  which  does  not  help  initiative." 
The  same  spirit,  the  same  distrust  of  the  intellect,  as 
though  it  were  the  enemy  and  not  the  friend  of  reUgion, 
has  been  carried  over  into  Protestantism.  We  have 
Luther  talking  of  **  wringing  the  neck  of  reason, 
and  strangling  the  beast."  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  in 
the  "  ReHgio  Medici,"  quietly  assumes  that  "  reason 
is  a  rebel  unto  faith."  And  the  Free  Churches  are 
to-day  offering  the  spectacle  of  a  deliberate  attempt 
to  strangle  officially  the  mind  of  its  teachers  in  the 
supposed  interests  of  the  Gospel. 

All  this,  we  say,  is  the  wrong  road.  It  is  a  march 
towards  the  abyss.  It  is  a  fight  against  the  laws  of 
Nature,  a  fight  where  the  issue  is  always  the  same. 
When  the  Church  loses  its  faith  in  the  mind,  it  loses 
its  faith  in  the  God  who  made  the  mind.  And  it  is 
time  it  began  once  more  to  believe  in  Him.  It  will 
have  to  come  back  to  the  principle  of  Locke,  that  only 
that  which  has  justified  itself  to  the  reason,  and  at  the 
same  time  won  man's  free  assent,  can  exercise  an 
inward  control  over  his  nature.  It  will  have  to  realise, 
as  Schopenhauer  puts  it,  that  faith  is  like  love — it 
cannot  be  forced.     If  the  Church  of  our  time  would 

62 


Intellect  and  the   Moral   Ideal 

resume  its  old  place  in  the  direction  of  men,  it  wiL 
have  to  occupy  itself  with  the  problem  to  which 
Schelling  in  his  later  period  turned  his  energies,  that 
of  bringing  about  the  rebirth  of  religion  through  the 
operation  of  science  in  its  supremest  form.  In  other 
words,  its  problem  is  the  reunion,  after  this  long 
separation,  of  the  intellect  and  of  the  moral  con- 
sciousness as  the  allied  factors  in  the  production  of 
character. 

For  it  remains,  notwithstanding  all  the  disastrous 
history  of  the  past,  that  only  in  union  with  the  spiritual 
life  can  the  intellect  obtain  its  freest  and  fullest  play. 
The  old  Brahmins  were  right  in  making  it  a  condition 
of  the  pursuit  of  philosophy  that  its  aspirants  should 
begin  by  subduing  their  passions  and  rigorously 
regulating  their  moral  life.  There  are  certain  truths, 
and  these  the  highest,  that  only  open  to  the  pure 
heart.  You  cannot  see  them  with  the  mind  till  the 
soul  gets  there.  This  is  what  Zwingli  meant  in  that 
notable  declaration  of  his  :  "  Truth  does  not  depend 
on  the  discussions  of  men,  but  has  its  seat  and  rests 
itself  invincibly  in  the  soul.  It  is  an  experience  which 
everyone  may  have.  It  is  not  a  doctrine,  a  question 
of  knowledge,  for  we  see  the  most  learned  men  who 
are  ignorant  of  this  thing,  which  is  the  most  salutary 
of  all.'*  You  can  never  know  the  truth  about  prayer 
but  by  praying.  You  can  never  understand  the 
force  of  renunciation  but  by  renouncing.  You  can 
never  understand  the  potency  of  faith  but  by  the 
soul's  trust.  You  will  never  open  the  hidden  secret 
of  happiness  until,  upon  earth's  sorrows  and  defeats, 
there  has  flashed  the  light  of  that  divine  vision  which 

63 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

is  given  only  to  the  pure  in  heart.  Has  not  Socrates 
put  it  all  for  us  in  that  saying  in  the  "  Gorgias  "  : 
"  Now  I,  CalUcles,  am  persuaded  of  the  truth  of  these 
things,  and  I  consider  how  I  shall  present  my  soul 
whole  and  undefiled  before  the  Judge  in  that  day. 
Renouncing  the  honours  at  which  the  world  aims,  I 
desire  only  to  know  the  truth,  and  to  live  as  well  as 
I  can,  and  when  the  time  comes  to  die.  And  to  the 
utmost  of  my  power  I  exhort  all  other  men  to  do  the 
same." 

We  repeat,  the  New  Testament  was  right  in  staking 
everything  upon  character.  Without  the  best  cha- 
racter you  cannot  get  the  best  intellect.  And  apart 
from  that,  intellect  of  itself  can  yield  no  ultimate 
satisfaction,  cannot  save  a  man  from  the  worst  errors. 
We  hear  sometimes,  "To  genius  everything  is  per- 
mitted." Does  Nature  say  that  ?  Let  genius  try, 
and  she  will  exact  her  penalty.  A  Byron,  a  Shelley, 
made  the  experiment ;  we  know  with  what  result. 
In  an  impressive  passage,  Lamartine  describes  how 
Mirabeau,  with  the  fate  of  France  in  his  hands,  when 
the  choice  lay  between  saving  his  country  or  selUng 
himself  to  the  Court — his  conscience  and  his  will 
weakened  to  nothing  by  his  vices  and  his  debts — 
failed  at  the  supreme  hour  and  lost  all.  Says  Carlyle, 
"  The  hope  of  humanity  lies  in  heroes  being  born  to  it." 
Well,  heroism  is  first  and  last  character.  The  man 
who  would  serve  his  country  must  first  of  all  have 
mastered  himself.  He  must  have  discovered  the 
difference  between  cleverness  and  wisdom.  Buddha, 
Confucius,  Jesus,  laid  the  foundations  of  their  empires 
on  character,  and  their  empires  have  lasted.     Buddha 

64 


Intellect  and  the  Moral  Ideal 

begins  by  his  act  of  self-renunciation  under  the  Bho 
tree.  Confucius  wins  through  the  practice  of  the 
simple  Ufe.  Says  he  :  "  With  coarse  rice  to  eat,  with 
water  to  drink,  and  my  bended  arm  for  a  pillow,  I 
still  have  joy  in  the  midst  of  these  things."  Jesus 
conquered  the  world  by  laying  down  His  hfe  for  His 
brethren.  In  different  degrees  of  fulness,  they  taught 
one  thing — that  to  open  the  soul  to  all  that  is  divinest 
in  Hfe,  to  saturate  it  with  spiritual  principle,  here  is 
the  way  of  strength  for  others  and  for  ourselves. 
Here  get  we  the  ultimate  satisfaction.  Along  this 
road,  and  this  only,  can  we  reach  the  condition  which 
M.  Bremond  describes  as  that  of  Newman  in  his 
last  days  :  "  He  can  lay  his  head  on  his  pillow  at 
night,  and  vow  in  God's  sight  that  he  wants  nothing  ; 
that  he  is  full  and  abounds,  and  that  nothing  is  not 
his  which  God  would  give  him." 

The  supreme  question  for  modern  civiHsation  is 
the  formation  of  character.  Of  what  use  are  our 
material  advancements  if  they  leave  only  a  dismal 
emptiness  within?  Of  what  use  carrying  the  people 
at  sixty  miles  an  hour  if  they  are  fools  when  they 
get  into  the  train  and  fools  when  they  get  out  ?  Of 
what  use  our  latest  telegraphy  if  it  flings  across  the 
world  no  better  news  than  of  commercial  frauds,  of 
society  intrigues,  of  the  follies  of  the  rich  and  the 
discontent  of  the  poor  ?  You  may  start  your  com- 
mon schools,  and  train  the  children  into  clever  devils — 
to  thieve  better,  to  lie  more  plausibly.  You  may 
teach  them  to  read  that  they  may  saturate  their  minds 
with  filth.  Any  education  that  is  not  first  and  fore- 
most a  training  in  character  is  only  a  preparation  for 

65  F 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

villainy's  more  effectual  service.  A  cultivated  scoun- 
drel may  do  more  harm  with  a  stroke  of  his  pen  than  a 
score  of  burglars  will  accomphsh  in  a  twelvemonth. 
Are  we  training  the  English  soul  to-day  ?  Can  we  say 
of  England  what  Milton  said  of  her  in  his  time  ? 
"  Let  not  England  forget  her  precedence  in  teaching 
nations  how  to  live."  For  England  has  been  built  on 
character  ;  on  such  conformity  as  she  has  attained 
to  the  inmost  nature  of  things  ;  on  such  obedience  as 
she  has  shown  to  the  laws  of  the  soul.  For  her,  and 
for  ourselves,  there  is  only  one  way  of  the  conquering 
life.  It  is  the  way  which  the  New  Testament  discloses 
— of  service,  purity  and  love. 


66 


VII 
PRAYER  AND  THE  IDEAL 

Says  the  farmer  in  Meredith's  "  Rhoda  Fleming": 
"  For  pray,  and  you  can't  go  far  wrong."  The  remark 
is  one  which  goes  far.  It  is  a  challenge  to  experience, 
and  the  experience  on  which  it  is  founded  is  a  very 
wide  one.  Man,  indeed,  might  be  defined  as  the 
praying  animal.  Wherever  you  meet  him,  from  the 
lowest  savagery  up  to  the  highest  civilisation,  you 
find  the  instinct  of  the  worshipper.  Here  all  the  cults 
meet.  We  have  seen  a  group  of  Mohammedans 
on  the  deck  of  a  ship,  oblivious  of  sailors  and  peering 
passengers,  prostrating  themselves  with  their  faces 
towards  the  East,  wrapped  in  their  devotions.  Their 
creed  was  not  that  of  Spurgeon's  Tabernacle,  nor  of 
the  Easter  throng  in  Rome,  nor  of  the  Hindu  multitude 
at  Benares,  but  they  were  performing  what,  in  all 
these  regions,  and  among  all  these  faiths,  is  an  identical 
act ;  an  act  in  which  everywhere  the  soul  bends  under 
the  same  impulse,  and  in  the  same  direction.  The 
feeling  which  prompts  the  act  is  an  essentially  human 
feeling,  the  response  to  a  human  need.  And  you 
may  take  it  for  granted  that  whatever  is  human  is 
true  ;  true  at  least  for  us.  When  we  eat  bread  we 
are  affirming  a  truth — the  truth  that  food  is  good  for 
us.  We  may  know  nothing  of  the  science  of  the 
business ;  we  are,  perhaps,  unable  to  argue  the  point. 
But  our  eating  is  an  argument ;    one  that  the  finest- 

67 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

spun  philosophy  will  not  be  able  to  refute.  And  prayer^ 
as  an  outcome  of  the  religious  feeling,  stands  on  similar 
ground.  For  we  may  say  here  with  Lecky,  one  of  the 
freest  of  our  thinkers  :  "  That  religious  instincts  are 
as  truly  a  part  of  our  nature  as  are  our  appetites  and 
our  nerves,  is  a  fact  which  all  history  establishes,  and 
which  forms  one  of  the  strongest  proofs  of  the  reaUty 
of  that  unseen  world  to  which  the  soul  of  man  con- 
tinually tends." 

We  have  had  orgies  of  speculation  and  of  speculative 
objection  on  this  subject,  but  the  latest  thought  about 
it  is  becoming  more  modest  and  more  practical. 
We  recognise  the  argumentative  strength  of  human 
practice.  And  the  reaction  here  is  a  truly  scientific 
one.  We  are  no  longer  so  ready  to  take  the  infinite 
for  our  province.  We  are  content  with  what  is  nearer 
at  hand;  with  the  doctrine  of  what  works  well.  Exitus 
acta  prohat:  the  outcome  of  things  is  the  best  criterion. 
That  is  pragmatism  on  its  best,  its  impregnable  side. 
When  we  say,  ''  This  thing  is  true  as  far  as  we  can 
see,  as  far  as  it  relates  to  our  own  Hfe,"  we  have  all 
there  is  to  go  upon.  And  it  is  sufficient  for  the  day. 
Later  discoveries  may  show  that  our  truth  is  a  Umited 
one.  But  it  is  not  falsified  by  the  higher  truth.  It  is 
only  put  in  its  place.  Gravitation,  for  aught  we  know, 
may  not  be  universal ;  but  it  is  true  for  our  system, 
and  that  is  enough.  The  atomic  weights  and  values 
of  our  chemistry  rested  originally  on  the  idea  of  the 
ultimate  character  and  indestructibility  of  the  atom. 
Later  researches  have  undercut  that  idea,  but  they 
have  not  destroyed  the  doctrine  of  atomic  weight, 
or  the  deductions  that  have  been  formed  from  it. 

68 


Prayer  and   the    Ideal 

The  doctrine  remains  true  as  far  as  it  goes.  The 
same  thing  appHes  to  our  reUgious  questions.  The 
human  experiences  here  point  to  a  truth,  are  founded 
upon  it.  That  we  are  not  able  to  reach  the  whole 
truth ;  that  we  have  only  perhaps  a  little  bit  of  it,  is 
no  argument  at  all  for  undervaluing  what  we  have. 
We  may  be  sure  that  what  is  beyond  us  will  not 
contradict  what  is  within  our  reach.  We  are  not  at 
the  end,  but  we  are  on  the  right  road. 

To  bring  all  this  to  the  matter  before  us,  the  doctrine 
of  prayer.  That  there  is  here  a  great  human  experi- 
ence, with  definite  results  of  the  most  positive  character, 
is,  we  affirm,  the  assurance  of  a  truth  about  it  on 
which  we  may  safely  rely.  And  we  may  rely  on  it 
the  more  when  we  consider  the  objections  that  have 
been  made  against  it.  For  prayer  has  been  attacked 
in  our  time  on  what  were  considered  scientific  grounds, 
and  very  formidable  ones.  We  remember  Huxley's 
challenge,  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  He  proposed 
a  scientific  test  as  to  the  curative  effects  of  prayer  in 
our  London  hospitals,  and  appeared  to  imagine  that 
an  experiment  of  this  sort  would  settle  the  question. 
We  doubt  if  any  scientist  of  repute  would  propose 
the  test  now.  The  misconception  on  which  it  rests 
has  been  too  sufficiently  exploded.  The  objection 
founded  itself  on  the  universality  of  causation,  of  the 
laws  of  cause  and  effect  as  we  see  them  at  work  in  the 
physical  universe.  A  man  may  pray  till  all  is  blue, 
but  if  he  is  at  the  moment  falling  from  a  precipice, 
gravitation  will  settle  matters  with  him  at  the  bottom . 
You  cannot  by  any  spiritual  effort  prevent  fire  from 
burning,  or  water  from  drowning.     That,  says  our 

69 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

scientist,  is  how  things  are ;  and,  moreover,  it  is  how 
things  should  be.  To  suppose  that  the  desires,  the 
ideas,  of  a  feeble,  narrow-minded  mortal  could  alter 
the  cosmic  laws  would  be  to  introduce  inextricable 
confusion,  would  reduce  everything  to  chaos.  All 
which,  of  course,  is  perfectly  true.  The  mistake  is  in 
supposing  that  this  touches  in  any  essential  point  the 
doctrine  and  the  practice  of  prayer. 

In  adducing  the  verdict  of  science  as  against  the 
belief  in  prayer,  the  objectors  were  confusing  two 
things  that  are  quite  distinct.  For  prayer  lives 
in  one  realm,  and  physical  science  in  another.  The 
two  realms  are  intimately  relatejd,  and  they  do  not 
contradict  each  other.  But  the  laws  which  govern 
them  are  different.  When  we  talk  physical  science, 
we  talk  of  weights,  colours,  dimensions,  distances;  of 
shapes,  of  solids,  of  Hquids;  of  things  measurable  in 
time  and  in  space.  And  the  laws  here  are  of  a  certain 
order,  which  fulfil  themselves,  as  we  see,  with  an 
unfailing  regularity.  But  ranged  up  alongside  of 
this  sphere  of  things,  intersecting,  overlapping  it 
at  every  point,  we  perceive  another  sphere  and  another 
order.  It  is  that  of  the  mind,  of  personality.  The 
physical  laws  come  close  to  that  sphere,  press  up 
to  it  at  every  point.  Our  thinking  goes  on  inside  a 
brain.  All  the  cells,  all  the  blood,  all  the  nerves 
of  that  brain  work  according  to  the  physical  order. 
The  cells  are  calculable  in  number.  You  can  reckon 
up  the  number  of  vibrations  per  second  in  the  ether 
that  are  translated  into  our  sensations  of  colour  and  of 
sound.  But  the  brain,  the  blood  and  the  nerves  are 
not    the   thinker,    nor    his    thought.     They    do   not 

70 


Prayer  and  the    Ideal 

go  by  the  same  standards.  You  can  weigh  the  brain, 
but  you  cannot  weigh  a  thought.  The  blood  is  red, 
but  you  cannot  talk  of  a  red  aspiration ;  no,  nor  of 
a  square  one.  The  adjectives  of  the  one  world  are 
ridiculous  as  applied  to  this  other  one.  They  do  not 
fit. 

These  are  truths  too  obvious  for  discussion.  The 
best  scientists  frankly  admit  them.  Says  Tyndall: 
"  The  passage  from  the  physics  of  the  brain  to  the 
corresponding  facts  of  consciousness  is  inconceivable 
as  the  result  of  mechanics.  The  problem  of  the 
connection  of  body  and  soul  is  as  insoluble  in  its  modern 
form  as  it  was  in  the  pre-scientific  ages."  "Science," 
says  Wundt,  "  can  only  indicate  the  path  that  leads 
to  territories  beyond  her  own,  ruled  by  other  laws 
than  those  to  which  her  realm  is  subject."  To  this 
one  may  add  that  word  of  Schopenhauer :  "  Against 
the  assertion  that  I  am  a  mere  modification  of  matter, 
this  must  be  insisted  on,  that  all  exists  merely  in  my 
idea." 

Observe  now  the  terms  on  which  our  inner  personaUty 
lives  with  what  we  call  the  inexorable  physical  laws. 
While  recognising  them  at  every  point,  it  knows  itself 
as  not  of  them,  as  more  than  they.  They  are  the  rules 
of  the  game,  but  they  do  not  play  the  game.  It 
is  we  who  do  that.  When  I  rise  to  cross  the  room, 
my  bones  and  muscles  will  obey  all  the  laws  of  motion. 
But  it  is  not  the  laws  of  motion  that  send  me  across 
the  room,  but  my  thought  and  will  which  use  them, 
but  are  not  they.  We  move  freely  in  a  bound  universe. 
That  is  the  miracle,  we  are  the  miracle. 

And  it  is  to  this  region  of  the  spirit,  of  personality, 

71 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

that  prayer  belongs.  It  supposes  a  kingdom  of  the 
spiritual,  stretching  beyond  our  ken,  just  as  does 
the  kingdom  of  the  physical.  They  both  begin  here, 
with  us,  and  both  stretch  beyond  us.  There  are 
millions  of  freely-acting  spirits  on  this  earth,  clothed 
as  we  are  with  bodies.  Why  should  we  suppose 
we  exhaust  the  spirituality  of  the  universe  ?  It  is  an 
inevitable  inference  from  what  goes  on  around  us 
that  behind  the  physical  infinite  is  a  spiritual  infinite. 
Not  less  can  we  keep  from  the  supposition  that  this 
spiritual  infinite  is  an  infinite  that  includes  personahty. 
The  thought  and  love  within  us  sprang  from  a  source 
that  also  knows  thought  and  love.  To  say,  as  a 
modern  school  has  said,  that  a  Divine  personahty  is 
a  contradiction  in  terms,  because  personality  implies 
limitation,  is  an  argument  that  overleaps  itself.  You 
might  just  as  well  say  that  the  absolute  or  the  infinite 
is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  For  can  we  not  conceive 
of  a  non-absolute,  of  a  non-infinite  (we  are,  in  fact, 
that  ourselves) — and  is  not  this  therefore  a  contra- 
diction ?  When  we  touch  the  question  of  the  infinite, 
on  whatever  terms  we  take  it,  we  touch  the  sphere  of 
contradictions,  for  it  is  the  sphere  of  the  mind's 
limitations.  The  non-belief  in  a  Personahty  solves 
no  mental  difficulty. 

Keeping  to  the  practical,  to  what  we  do  know, 
which  is  the  only  sure  Hne  for  us,  when  we  pray  we 
must  accept  a  Personahty.  We  cannot  adore  oxygen, 
or  offer  petitions  to  the  law  of  gravitation.  Prayer  is 
communion  with  a  Person,  and  what  we  have  already 
said  as  to  the  relations  of  our  own  personahty  to  the 
laws  of  the  physical  world  makes  it  easy  for  us  to 

72 


Prayer  and  the    Ideal 

understand  how  such  communion,  how  such  prayer 
and  answer  to  prayer,  can  go  on  without  any  contra- 
vention of  the  physical  order.  If  that  physical  order 
does  not  prevent  our  fellowship  one  with  another; 
does  not  prevent  our  appeal  to  a  neighbour  and  his 
answer  to  it,  why  should  this  be  impossible  as  between 
ourselves  and  our  God  ?  If  we  can  move  freely  amid 
the  physical  laws,  cannot  He  ?  Are  we  free,  and  He 
the  only  bound  ? 

That  further  objection  that  prayer  involves  the 
dictation  of  man  to  God  ;  that  prayer,  where  it  is 
answered,  means  the  control  of  things  by  man's 
uninformed  wishes,  rather  than  by  infinite  wisdom 
or  by  the  reign  of  law,  falls  at  once  to  the  ground 
when  we  consider  what  true  prayer  really  is.  It  is  a 
travesty  of  the  idea  to  suppose  it  means  saying  to  God, 
"  Do  this,  or  that  "  ;  "  Give  me  what  I  want  "  ! 
For  the  genuine  prayer  comes  in  the  first  instance  not 
from  man,  but  from  God  Himself.  It  is  the  gracious 
circulation  of  Divine  ideas  through  the  human  soul. 
It  is  the  rain  from  heaven  falHng  upon  this  prepared 
soil,  and  springing  up  there  in  love,  and  trust,  and  holy 
resignation  to  a  Will  higher  than  itself.  It  is,  as 
Goethe  has  somewhere  put  it,  God  seeking  for  Him- 
self and  meeting  Himself  in  man.  Prayer,  at  its 
truest,  is  not  man  having  his  way  with  God,  but 
God  having  His  way  with  man. 

Let  us  come  back  to  prayer  on  its  human  side  ; 
the  side  w^e  know.  We  began  by  speaking  of  the  test 
of  results,  and  we  return  to  that.  We  repeat  that 
whatever  in  a  long  course  of  experience  shows  as  a  sure 
help  to  inner  progress,  to  the  development  of  the  best 

73 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

in  us,  proves  itself  as  founded  in  the  truth  of  things. 
How  does  prayer  stand  this  test  ?  Does  not  the 
saying  of  Meredith's  farmer  hold  good:  "  Pray,  and 
you  cannot  go  far  wrong  "  ?  Let  a  man  try  it ;  let 
him  morning  and  evening,  and  in  the  hours  of  the  day, 
bring  himself  into  mental  and  moral  contact  with 
the  All  Holy  and  the  All  Loving  ;  let  him  in  that 
sacred  Presence  review  his  affairs,  his  projects,  seeking 
help  and  guidance ;  let  him  mention  there  his  human 
relationships,  his  household,  his  friends,  his  enemies 
if  he  have  such.  Will  that  make  no  difference  to  his 
daily  conduct,  to  the  poise  of  his  spirit  ?  A  rascal 
should  be  kept  from  prayer  by  his  very  sense  of  humour. 
The  thing  is  too  absurd.  It  is  true  that  men  here 
play  the  queerest  tricks  with  themselves.  They  will 
outdo  an  Old  Bailey  attorney  in  the  pleas  with  which 
they  seek  to  sophisticate  their  conscience  and  to 
outwit  heaven's  Court  of  Appeal.  But  the  thing  is  a 
farce,  and  they  know  it.  Judgment  is  against  them. 
There  is  no  communion  apart  from  sincerity.  These 
people  may  get  their  selfish  way ;  but  the  soul's 
supreme  feHcity,  in  a  sense  of  the  Divine  fellowship, 
is  the  thing  they  will  not  get. 

Prayer  is  a  spiritual  exercise,  and  its  results  are 
spiritual.  The  men  who  know  its  fullest  exercise 
are  the  men  who  are  in  a  condition  to  talk  about  it. 
Cuique  sua  arte  credendum  est.  Says  Bagehot,  and  with 
entire  truth:  "  The  criterion  of  true  beauty  is  with 
those — they  are  not  many — who  have  a  sense  of  true 
beauty  ;  the  criterion  of  true  morality  is  with  those 
who  have  a  sense  of  true  moraUty  ;  and  the  criterion 
of  true  reUgion  is  with  those  who  have  a  sense  of  true 

74 


Prayer  and  the    Ideal 

religion."  It  is  so,  emphatically,  with  prayer.  The 
literature  of  devotion  is  amongst  the  best  reading  in 
the  world.  The  study  of  it  brings  us  in  contact  with 
the  world's  greatest  spirits — with  Jesus,  with  Paul, 
with  Augustine,  with  Francis,  with  Luther,  with 
Wesley.  It  is  the  meeting-ground  of  opposing  creeds, 
where  they  fuse,  lose  their  opposition,  become  one 
prevailing  force.  When  you  are  reading  Augustine's 
**  Confessions,"  or  Andrewes'  "Devotions,"  or  Bishop 
Wilson's  "Sacra  Privata,"  or  Methodist  WiUiam 
Bramwell's  mighty  supplications,  you  forget  theo- 
logical differences;  you  are  in  contact  with  one  and 
the  same  spiritual  energy.  To  keep  on  the  outer 
circle  of  mere  fussy  activities,  while  neglecting  this 
innermost  force,  is  Hke  turning  a  hand-loom  and 
forgetting  steam  or  electricity.  In  the  world  of  the 
spiritual,  as  in  that  of  the  physical,  to  reach  the  true 
sphere  of  power  we  must  go  down  from  the  circum- 
ference to  the  innermost  centre. 

Apart  from  the  question  of  power,  consider  the 
immense  comfort  of  prayer.  Man  in  himself  is  the 
loneHest  being  in  the  world.  The  wall  of  his  separate 
personality  shuts  him  off,  as  to  his  interior  self,  in  an 
awful  isolation  from  all  the  milHons  that  surround  him. 
His  neighbours  may  look  in  at  his  windows,  may  come 
into  his  guest-chamber,  but  they  penetrate  never  the 
cell  where  he  sits  alone.  He  is  hke  the  island  con- 
tinent of  Australia,  whose  boundaries  are  rimmed  with 
ports  and  cities,  but  whose  vast  interior  lies  silent, 
uninhabited.  Yet  assuredly  this  loneliness  is  no 
mischance,  no  accident  of  his  being.  It  is  an  insulation 
from  the  outward,  to  secure  the  uninterrupted  play  of 

75 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

his  spiritual  contacts.  For  the  trained  soul  knows 
itself  as  not  alone.  It  knows  a  perpetual,  invisible 
companionship.  It  has  a  speech  which  it  cannot 
translate  to  its  neighbour.  In  the  glare  of  the  day, 
in  the  hum  of  the  crowd,  in  the  silent  watches  of  the 
night,  it  talks  with  the  Unseen,  it  has  converse  with 
its  Friend.  Its  past,  its  present,  its  future ;  its 
trials,  temptations,  defeats  ;  its  joys,  its  griefs — all 
enter  into  that  constant  colloquy.  Lamartine,  in 
his  "Confidences,"  speaks  of  a  certain  walk  in  the 
garden  of  their  French  home,  where  his  mother  spent 
always  a  certain  hour  of  the  day — upon  which  neither 
husband  nor  children  ever  intruded  —  where  she 
paced,  her  hands  clasped,  her  eyes  lifted  to  heaven, 
her  lips  moving  to  unuttered  words.  It  was  the  sacred 
hour  of  her  speech  with  God  ;  an  hour  from  which 
she  returned  refreshed  and  renewed.  Poor  souls, 
that  have  not  such  a  Beulah-land  to  walk  in  !  Poor 
souls  that  have,  in  their  inner  territory,  no  such 
mountain  height  from  which  to  look  down  upon  their 
world,  to  look  up  to  their  Father  in  heaven  ! 

Prayer  should  never  be  a  task,  a  mechanism.  We 
read  of  the  monks  of  the  Studium  at  Constantinople, 
in  the  eighth  century,  that  they  were  called  "  the 
sleepless,"  because  they  took  their  turn  in  ceaselessly 
chanting,  night  and  day,  the  year  round.  There  are 
monasteries  and  convents  to-day  where  shivering  souls 
are  turned  out  at  midnight  to  go  through  the  pre- 
scribed office.  It  is,  we  imagine,  a  sleepy  and  dolorous 
function.  It  would  surely  be  an  improvement  to 
invent  a  machine  to  do  this  business  for  them  while 
they  slept  like  other  people.     Call  this  task  work  if 

76 


Prayer  and  the   Ideal 

you  will;  call  it  discipline,  penance,  obedience;  but 
do  not  call  it  prayer.  It  is  a  travesty  of  the  soul's 
noblest  exercise.  It  will  impoverish  the  body;  it 
will  never  enrich  the  heart.  You  cannot  pray  without 
perfect  freedom,  without,  one  may  say,  real  enjoy- 
ment of  your  prayer.  Physical  conditions  need  here 
to  be  studied.  There  are  good  people  who,  in  a  cold 
bedroom,  in  an  undressed  condition,  kneel  for  a 
moment — shivering  and  impatient  for  warmth — hasten 
through  an  incoherent  petition,  to  escape  then  into 
their  blankets  with  a  painful  duty  done.  There  is 
nothing  much  there,  one  fears,  to  interest  either  heaven 
or  earth  !  Why  not  get  into  your  blankets  first  and 
pray  there  ?  At  all  events,  be  sure  of  this  :  you  will 
know  nothing  of  prayer  until  it  is  a  joy  ;  a  joy  Hke 
that  of  the  lark  who  sings  as  he  rises,  his  song  a 
rapture  of  upward  movement. 

To  sum  up  what  has  here  been  said.  Prayer  is  a 
human  experience  whose  test  is  its  results  upon  the 
soul.  It  is  the  pabulum  of  the  ideal  life.  Those 
results  argue  its  relation  to  the  truth  of  things.  It 
supposes  man's  fellowship  with  a  spiritual  universe, 
his  immediate  contact  with  a  supreme  and  holy 
Personahty,  a  supposition  against  which  science,  truly 
considered,  brings  no  valid  objection.  It  is  a  spiritual 
force  which  has  wrought  in  the  mightiest  souls  and 
in  the  mightiest  movements.  It  demands  as  its 
conditions  a  true  and  sincere  life.  It  is  the  source  of 
man's  purest  joys.  It  is  the  function  to  which  he  must 
bring  his  best  in  order  to  receive  its  best.  It  is  his 
heaven  here,  and  prepares  him  for  all  the  heavens  that 
are  beyond. 

77 


VIII 
PHILOSOPHY  AND  RELIGION 

Philosophy  and  religion  are  very  near  relations,  and, 
as  is  at  times  the  way  with  near  relations,  they  have 
very  often  quarrelled.  But  they  cannot  get  on  without 
each  other.  Their  attempts  to  do  so  reveal  only  more 
clearly  their  profound  affinities,  the  closeness  of  the 
tie  that  unites  them.  They  are  both  functions  of  the 
same  soul.  The  one  is  its  quest  for  truth,  the  other  its 
search  for  inner  peace.  Religion  finds  itself  in  feeling 
and  experience  ;  philosophy  searches  for  the  rationale, 
the  meaning  of  the  experience.  You  will  never  get 
a  religion  without  a  philosophy,  and  for  the  reason 
that  wherever  a  heart  beats  there  is  a  head  in  imme- 
diate contact.  It  is  an  instructive  study  to  watch  the 
relations  of  these  two,  their  quarrels  and  reconcile- 
ments, their  questions  and  answers,  the  debt  which 
each  owes  to  the  other. 

In  the  early  world,  philosophy  and  reHgion  grew 
side  by  side,  but  with  a  curiously  separate  history. 
Greece  and  Palestine  are  not  so  far  from  each  other 
in  the  matter  of  statute  miles,  but  their  education  as 
races  was  on  totally  different  lines.  The  Jew  did  not 
philosophise.  His  nearest  approach  to  it,  in  the 
Wisdom  Hterature  of  the  Old  Testament,  is  rather 
in  the  way  of  maxims  for  practical  life  than  of  the 

78 


Philosophy  and   Religion 

discussion  of  ultimate  questions.  When  Christianity 
came  we  have  a  growing  fusion  of  the  Hebrew  with 
the  Greek  mind,  and,  as  a  consequence,  philosophies 
which  by-and-by  crystalHse  into  dogmas. 

When  we  study  these  two  separate  streams  and 
trace  them  back  to  their  source,  we  are  struck  with 
the  different  ways  in  which  man  has  attacked  the 
problem  of  life.  The  Greek  mind — from  Thales  right 
down  to  Plotinus — gives  us  a  history  of  sheer  thinking. 
It  keeps  largely  aloof  from  the  rehgious  systems 
around  it ;  is  often  in  direct  opposition  to  them. 
It  fixes  its  gaze  upon  the  cosmos  outside  and  upon 
the  states  and  movements  of  the  soul  within,  and 
strives  to  penetrate  to  the  reason  of  it  all.  Socrates 
is  the  great  cross-examiner.  He  meets  everything 
and  everybody  with  his  note  of  interrogation.  Begin- 
ning with  the  confession  that  be  himself  knows  nothing, 
he  tries  to  find  out  whether  his  fellow  men,  especially 
the  more  pretentious  of  them,  know  anything.  His 
dialogues,  which  Plato  has  preserved  for  us,  are  the 
perfection  of  analysis.  Cutting  his  way  down  and 
down  through  the  deceptions  of  appearance,  through 
the  floating  sophisms  of  the  hour,  he  seeks  with  an 
inspired  ardour  for  the  ultimate  ground  and  root  of 
things — for  the  true  life,  the  chief  good.  His  country- 
men slew  him  for  his  irreligion — the  most  religious  soul 
amongst  them.  It  is  wonderful  to  think  that  his 
conclusion  is  none  other  than  that  which  Augustine, 
by  a  different,  by  the  Christian  road,  reached  centuries 
after  ;  that  for  man  there  are  two  things,  God  and 
the  soul,  and  that  nothing  else  much  matters.  Who 
that  reads  Socrates  can  ever  imagine  that  inspiration, 

79 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

that  the  spiritual  education  of  man,  was  an  affair  of 
Palestine  alone  ? 

And  still  less  when  he  reads  Plato.  UnworldHness, 
on  European  soil  at  least,  may  be  said  to  begin  with 
Plato.  While  the  Hebrew  of  his  period,  both  in 
reHgion  and  politics,  was  concerned  with  this  world 
and  the  present  life,  this  austere  and  lofty  thinker 
finds  the  world  and  all  things  visible  to  be  only  the 
dim  shadow  of  the  reality.  That  reality  is  a  spiritual 
one.  Behind  what  we  see  are  the  things  unseen. 
The  real  substance  of  things  is  ideas,  eternal  ideas 
which  existed  before  the  world  was,  and  which  inhere 
in  the  one  Being  in  whom  all  things  are  contained. 
Plato  is  the  exponent  of  God,  the  soul  and  immortality 
He  believes  in  the  enormous  improvability  of  the 
present  life — witness  his  vast  suggestions  in  the 
**Laws"  and  the  "  RepubUc."  But  "this  is  not  our 
rest."  We  are  pilgrims  of  eternit3^  benighted  pilgrims. 
Our  present  condition  is  one  of  imprisonment.  We 
are  shut  in  the  body  as  in  a  cage.  Death  will  be  our 
liberation  to  a  truer  existence,  a  larger  Hfe. 

In  Aristotle  we  have  a  reaction  from  Platonism,  in 
some  ways  its  antithesis.  Aristotle  is  a  reahst,  one 
one  might  say  a  positivist.  His  vast  intelHgence  is 
occupied  with  things  as  they  are  ;  and  they  suffice  him. 
He  beUeves  in  God,  the  Pure  Reason,  the  Eternal 
Mover.  But  the  development  of  things  arises  from 
their  mere  nature.  There  is  nothing  in  his  system 
answering  to  the  Christian  idea  of  a  personal  Provi- 
dence. And  he  dismisses  the  hope  of  a  hereafter  for 
us.  Thought  will  not  be  extinguished  at  the  disso- 
lution of  the  body,  but  will  return  to  the  universal 

80 


Philosophy  and   Religion 

reason.  But  that  does  not  mean  the  continuance  of 
the  individual.  With  Aristotle  we  are  in  the  driest  of 
dry  lights.  After  Aristotle,  Epicurus,  who  follows 
the  Stagirite  not  in  time  only,  but  to  some  extent  in 
principle.  He,  too,  is  for  this-worldness  and  making 
the  best  of  hfe  as  it  is.  If  there  be  gods,  they  are 
remote  from  us,  and  we  have  not  much  to  do  with 
them,  nor  they  with  us.  But  we  need  to  understand 
Epicurus.  He  is  the  much-maligned.  His  idea  that 
pleasure  is  the  chief  good  has  been  curiously  mis- 
understood. He  is  the  last  to  be  cited  in  favour  of 
profligacy.  Like  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  he  was  a  vege- 
tarian, the  most  abstemious  of  men.  To  enjoy  life 
you  had  to  be  good.  "  One  cannot  Hve  agreeably," 
says  he,  **  without  living  intelligently,  beautifully  and 
justly  .  .  .  for  the  virtues  are  intertwined  with 
an  agreeable  life,  and  an  agreeable  life  is  inseparable 
from  the  virtues." 

Stoicism  is  the  noblest  fruit  of  the  Greek  mind. 
For  centuries  it  furnished,  both  in  Greece  and  Rome, 
the  food  of  the  finest  souls.  It  exhibits  to  a  degree 
never  before  reached  the  predominance  of  the  moral 
sentiment.  Its  outlook  is  stern.  Life  is  no  joke. 
It  is  a  battle  for  which  the  warrior  is  to  arm  himself 
at  all  points.  The  true  man  will  not  be  injured  by 
misfortune ;  his  fortune  is  in  himself.  As  you  read 
Epictetus,  or  Seneca,  or  Marcus  Aurehus,  you  might 
think  you  were  listening  to  a  Methodist  preacher. 
How  full  are  they  of  renunciation,  of  the  Divine 
presence,  of  the  need  of  inward  hoHness!  "When 
you  have  shut  yourself  in  your  chamber,"  says 
Epictetus,  "you  are  not  alone.     God  is  with  you." 


Life   and   the   Ideal 

"  The  earthly  hfe,"  says  AureUus,  "has  but  one  fruit, 
inward  hoHness  and  social  acts."  Nowhere  else  do  we 
come  so  near  to  the  Gospel  ethic.  The  idea,  indeed, 
has  more  than  once  been  hazarded  that  Epictetus 
had  contact  with  St.  Paul.  And  Marcus  AureHus, 
though  he  persecuted  the  Christians,  may  well  have 
appropriated  some  of  their  teaching. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  contact  of  philosophy  with 
Christianity  and  its  effect  upon  it.  The  Gospel, 
originating  on  Hebrew  soil,  was  at  first  remote  from 
philosophy  as  commonly  understood.  It  was  not  so 
much  a  thought  as  a  fact.  It  was  a  Personality  and 
a  power,  the  material  for  thinking  rather  than  thinking. 
The  Greek  mind  was  occupied  with  logic  and  abstract 
ideas,  and  for  these  the  Palestinian  crowd  that  Jesus 
addressed  had  no  use.  The  synoptic  gospels,  which 
reflect  the  great  ministry,  are  the  simplest  recitals- 
How  enormous  the  difference  between  Matthew 
and,  say,  the  Parmenides  of  Plato  !  But  as  the  new 
rehgion  spread  the  distance  was  soon  bridged.  In 
the  prologue  of  the  fourth  gospel  we  have  already 
a  taste  of  the  Greek  mind.  It  is  a  philosophy.  The 
Logos  it  speaks  of  comes  straight  from  Alexandria. 
Paul's  epistles  show  also  the  same  fusion.  The 
terms  in  which  he  describes  his  Master  were  ready- 
made  for  him  in  the  same  school  of  thought.  Theology 
has  hardly  yet  recognised  the  extent  to  which,  for 
the  New  Testament  descriptions  of  Christ,  as  given 
in  the  epistles,  it  is  indebted  to  Philo  Judaeus  and 
the  other  Alexandrians  who,  at  the  conflux  of  the 
Greek  and  Jewish  worlds,  had  built  up  the  Logos  and 
mediator  vocabulary.     The  apostles  did  not  invent 

82 


Philosophy  and   ReUgion 

these  names.  They  borrowed  them  from  these 
sources,  as  the  best  they  could  find  to  express  what 
they  felt  about  Jesus.  That  is  a  fact  we  should  never 
forget  when  we  try  to  estimate  what  they  mean. 

In  the  next  and  following  ages  we  have  the  growing 
effect  of  philosophy  as  moulding  the  Christian  belief. 
The  early  apologists  are  full  of  it.  Justin  Martyr, 
one  of  the  first  of  them,  had  passed  through  the  Stoic 
and  Platonic  schools,  and  in  his  two  Apologies  speaks 
as  a  converted  philosopher.  Then  came  the  great 
battle  with  the  Gnostics,  sects  which  brought  the 
wildest  Eastern  speculations  to  bear  upon  the  Gospel, 
and  to  account  for  the  fact  of  Christ.  The  works  of 
Irenaeus  are  one  long  fight  against  these  monstrous 
theories.  Origen  and  Alexandrian  Clement  classed 
philosophy  as,  properly  understood,  the  most  valuable 
ally  of  religion.  The  latter  openly  expresses  his 
contempt  for  those  who  contemn  or  fear  it.  It  is 
noteworthy  also  how  the  great  Fathers,  both  Greek 
and  Latin,  call  in  the  aid  of  the  great  pagan  thinkers 
in  building  up  the  Church's  ethical  system,  in  stating 
its  doctrinal  position.  The  Creeds  were  forged  on 
the  Greek  anvil.  There  would  have  been  no 
Athanasian  Creed  had  not  Aristotle  written  his  logic 
and  formulated  his  categories.  It  is  one  of  the  oddities 
of  history,  when  we  remember  what  Aristotle's  beUef 
really  was,  that  he,  through  a  mangled  and  expurgated 
Latin  translation,  should  have  been  the  shaper  and 
the  pabulum  of  a  large  side  of  Catholic  thought, 
through  centuries  of  the  mediaeval  Church.  How 
strange,  too,  to  remember  (a  recent  controversy  on 
God  and  evil  calls  it  to  mind)  that  Aristotle's  idea 

83 


Life   and   the   Ideal 

of  evil  as  having  no  independent  nature,  being  an 
abatement,  a  negation  of  good,  a  shadow  of  the  hght, 
a  necessity  in  the  sum  of  things,  should  be  accepted 
by  Augustine  !  "  If  it  were  not  good  that  there 
should  be  evil,  evil  would  in  no  wise  have  been  per- 
mitted by  Omnipotent  Goodness."  How  curious  that 
this  idea,  which  travels  down  through  Dionysius, 
through  Scotus  Erigena,  through  Abelard,  through 
the  mediaeval  mystics,  should  emerge  in  our  time  as 
a  brand-new  and  unheard-of  heresy  ! 

To-day  we  are  full  of  philosophy.  The  Christian 
student  must  know  his  Bacon,  his  Descartes,  his 
Kant,  his  Hegel,  his  Schopenhauer,  his  Spencer,  even 
his  Nietzsche.  Every  modern  theology  begins  with 
a  philosophy.  Schleiermacher  opens  with  a  theory 
of  feeling,  Ritschl  with  a  theory  of  knowledge.  Before 
we  can  touch  the  concrete  facts  of  religion  we  must 
have  some  theory  of  the  universe,  some  conclusions 
as  to  materialism  and  idealism,  some  view  as  to 
determinism  and  the  freedom  of  the  will. 

And  yet  philosophy  is  not  rehgion,  nor  is  religion 
philosophy.  That  is  why  Jesus  was  not  a  philosopher. 
Religion  is  the  primal  fact,  while  philosophy  is  the 
attempted  explanation  of  the  fact.  Religion  is  some- 
thing happening  in  the  deepest  spheres  of  feeling,  a 
new  mysterious  incoming  of  Hfe,  a  mystery  which  the 
intellect  in  turn  wakes  up  to  and  seeks  to  penetrate. 
What  Jesus  did  for  His  followers  was  not  to  puzzle 
them  with  abstractions,  but  to  stir  them  to  moral 
passion,  to  wake  in  them  a  longing  for  holiness,  for  the 
liberation  of  the  soul  ;  to  fill  them  with  a  new  inward 
power.     It  was  not  so  much  a  thinking  as  a  being  and 

84 


Philosophy  and  ReUgion 

a  doing.  Herein  we  see  opening  the  whole  difference 
between  these  two  things.  Philosophy  is  an  explana- 
tion, and  3^ou  cannot  convert  people  by  an  explana- 
tion. To  do  a  thing  is  one  thing  ;  to  tell  how  it  is 
done  is  quite  another. 

And  thus  it  is  that  while  the  Greek  philosophers 
discussed  their  problems  with  a  few  intimates,  and  left 
the  people  untouched,  the  religion  of  Jesus  made 
multitudes  thrill  with  the  sense  of  a  new  existence. 
The  Emperor  JuHan  scoffed  at  the  idea  of  fishermen 
erecting  themselves  into  theologians.  That  was  the 
wonder  which,  instead  of  scoffing  at,  he  should  have 
tried  to  understand.  Philosophy  here  has  had  to 
confess  its  own  impotence,  and  that  at  the  hands  of 
its  greatest  exponent.  Says  Aristotle,  speaking  of 
moral  systems  :  "  The  truth  is,  they  seem  to  have 
power  to  urge  on  and  to  excite  young  men  of  liberal 
minds,  and  to  make  a  character  that  is  generous  and 
truly  honourable  to  be  easily  influenced  by  virtue ; 
but  that  they  have  no  power  to  persuade  the  multitude 
to  what  is  virtuous  and  honourable."  Plato  expresses 
a  hke  despair.  "God,"  says  he,  "the  Father  and 
Creator  of  the  universe,  is  difficult  to  find,  and  when 
found  impossible  to  impart  to  all."  Contrast  this 
with  the  testimony  of  Athenagoras  concerning  the 
Church  of  his  day  :  "  Among  us  you  will  find  un- 
educated persons,  and  artisans  and  old  women,  who, 
if  they  are  unable  in  words  to  prove  the  benefit  of  our 
doctrine,  3^et  by  their  deeds  exhibit  the  benefit  arising 
from  their  persuasion  of  its  truth ;  they  do  not  rehearse 
speeches,  but  exhibit  good  works;  when  struck  they 
do  not  strike  again  ;    when  robbed  they  do  not  go  to 

85 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

law;    they  give  to  those  who  ask  of  them,  and  love 
their  neighbours  as  themselves." 

There  have  you  the  whole  secret.  Philosophy  is 
the  endeavour  to  make  the  world  wiser.  The  Gospel 
is  the  bold  attempt  to  make  the  world  better.  Philo- 
sophy is  an  appeal  to  the  intellect.  ReHgion  in  its 
highest  form  captures  the  heart.  We  are  told  to-day 
that  the  modern  cultivated  intellect  is  leaving  the 
Church  ;  is  giving  up  the  Christian  dogma.  Perhaps 
it  is.  But  let  us  clearly  understand  what  is  happening. 
What  men  are  giving  up  is  not  the  fact,  but  old-world, 
mediaeval  explanations  of  the  fact.  When  they  reject 
the  Ptolemaic  astronomy  they  are  not  rejecting  the 
stars.  Christianity  in  itself  can  never  be  given  up, 
because  it  is  here,  a  fact  that  has  happened.  It  is 
part  of  the  great  evolution  of  our  world.  The  power 
which  from  the  beginning  has  been  at  work  on 
humanity,  Hfting  it  from  animalhood  to  manhood, 
signalised  here  a  new  departure  ;  that  further  evolu- 
tion which  is  to  assimilate  manhood  to  divine-hood. 
The  Eternal  Life  whose  successive  incomings  upon 
man  have  made  up  his  real  history,  dropped  here  a  new 
seed  of  itself  upon  the  waiting  soul.  Philosophy  to-day 
is  seeking  for  its  own  interpretation  of  the  mystery, 
an  interpretation  which  shall  include  all  that  science 
and  criticism  and  history  have  to  say.  Upon  that 
interpretation  the  new  Church,  the  new  rehgion,  will 
be  built.  But  the  Life  itself  remains  always  deeper 
than  the  philosophy  of  it.  Our  faith  rests  secure  on 
the  fact  that  the  Power  which  wrought  in  Christ  is 
there  still,  waiting  for  its  further  manifestations. 


86 


IX 

EVENTS   AND   THE   IDEAL 

What  events  mean  in  the  realm  of  the  ideal  may  be 
studied  from  one  which  happened  in  our  recent  history. 
When  at  Buckingham  Palace,  at  midnight  of  the  fatal 
Friday,  a  kingly  heart  ceased  to  beat,  there  went  from 
that  centre,  to  earth's  farthest  Umits,  a  thrill  of  pro- 
found and  universal  emotion.  One  reaUsed  there  the 
new  soUdarity  of  humanity.  Never  before  perhaps 
have  the  myriad  hearts  of  men  been  touched  so 
simultaneously,  been  hf ted  at  one  and  the  same  moment 
to  such  a  height  of  feeling.  This  vast  common  con- 
sciousness is  worthy  of  all  our  study.  For  out  of  it 
there  emerges  a  group  of  truths  but  Httle  appre- 
hended at  present,  but  which  are  vital  to  faith,  and 
which  will  tell,  with  a  constantly  increasing  emphasis, 
upon  both  our  social  and  our  religious  thinking. 
Observe  here,  to  begin  with,  the  way  in  which  our 
material  and  scientific  progress  is  telHng  upon  our 
world's  inner  and  moral  condition.  There  could  have 
been  no  such  outburst  of  sympathy,  no  such  vivid 
sense  of  the  near  relationship  of  peoples  as  was  then 
witnessed,  had  it  not  been  for  the  new  triumphs  of 
electricity,  the  new  methods  of  communication.  It  was 
because,  owing  to  these  material  advances,  everybody 
learned  the  same  thing  at  the  same  time,  that  the 

87 


Life   and   the   Ideal 

response  was  so  immediate  and  so  immense.  Thus 
the  victory  of  matter  became  at  once  a  victory  of 
spirit.  The  outer  sphere  of  motion  translated  itself 
straightway  into  the  inner  sphere  of  consciousness; 
the  heightening  of  the  one  was  simultaneously  the 
heightening  of  the  other.  Here  have  we  the  con- 
firmation of  the  apostolic  word  :  "  First  that  which  is 
natural,  afterward  that  which  is  spiritual."  Things 
come  in  their  order.  That  word  of  primitive  Genesis, 
''Increase  and  multiply;  replenish  the  earth  and 
subdue  it,"  prophetically  indicates  that  path  of  move- 
ment along  which  humanity  is  to  march  towards  its 
kingdom.  The  preliminary  subjugation  of  outward 
Nature  is  accomplishing  itself.  Man  was  first  to  know 
and  master  the  outside  of  things.  He  had  to  go 
through  his  animal  period,  his  tug  and  wrestle  period ; 
to  know  the  strength  of  his  arm,  and  then  the  strength 
of  his  brain.  And  there  was  no  hurry  in  all  this. 
The  Divine  idea  was  patient  of  its  fulfilment.  But  the 
ulterior  aim  was  always  in  view.  The  subjugation 
of  the  earth  was,  and  is,  we  say,  a  preliminary.  The 
material  advance  is  for  a  spiritual  result.  The  move- 
ment began  in  the  spiritual,  and  in  the  spiritual 
it  will  end.  The  kingdom  of  force  is  always  and 
everywhere  subservient  to  the  kingdom  of  the  soul. 

Events  take  their  size  from  the  spiritual  order. 
They  grow  as  we  grow.  This  truth  was  discerned  in 
the  world's  childhood,  but  in  an  infantile  way.  It 
was  felt  always  that  the  unseen  was  greater  than 
the  seen,  that  the  soul  of  things  was  bigger  than 
their  body.  But  men,  in  their  ignorance,  stumbled 
i.n  the  expression  of  this  thought.     In  their  thirst  for 

§8 


Events  and  the  Ideal 

the  unseen,  for  something  to  love  and  worship,  they 
underrated  the  visible.  They  found  the  world  common- 
place— because  they  did  not  know  it.  And  so,  to 
improve  it,  they  dragged  in  the  ideal  by  the  neck 
and  shoulders.  The  actual  was  not  good  enough,  and 
to  help  it  out  they  imported  the  supernatural  and  the 
miraculous.  Men  were  made  gods,  and  ordinary  Hves 
embellished  with  incredible  legends.  Events  were 
spirituaHsed,  but  in  the  wrong  way.  To-day  we  are 
learning  to  take  a  sounder  view.  We  see  that  in  the 
universe  there  is  no  commonplace  ;  everything  is 
wonderful,  in  a  wa}^  miraculous.  We  find  the  Divine, 
not  in  crude  interferences  with  Nature,  but  in  Nature 
herself,  in  her  normal  action. 

Take,  as  illustration  of  this,  her  way  of  treating 
events.  We  referred,  a  moment  ago,  to  the  enormous 
enhancement  of  a  single  happening  brought  about 
by  the  aid  of  science,  by  the  instrumentality  of  steam 
and  electricity.  But  Nature  has  her  way  of  treating 
these  happenings — a  way  which,  as  modern  know- 
ledge comes  to  interpret  them,  fills  us  with  a  new  awe 
and  wonder.  This  knowledge,  as  compared  with  that 
of  the  pre-scientific  age,  has  increased  the  size  of  events 
a  miUionfold.  We  find  that  our  human  history  is 
written  not  onl}^  in  our  manuscripts  and  folios,  but 
upon  the  whole  universe.  To  take  the  supreme 
example.  When  Christ  died  upon  the  cross  eighteen 
centuries  ago,  the  fact  was  known  first  to  a  few  people 
in  Jerusalem.  Then  through  the  zeal  of  the  first 
missionaries  it  travelled  from  one  humble  group 
to  another  throughout  the  Roman  empire.  It  has 
been  travelling  ever  since  through  the  world's  popu- 

89 


Life   and   the   Ideal 

lations,  though  it  is  still  unknown  to  countless  millions. 
But  here  comes  in  another  scale  of  calculation.  The 
ether-waves,  whose  movement  brought  the  sorrowful 
spectacle  to  the  view  of  the  Jewish  spectators  who 
surrounded  the  cross,  were  flashing  it,  at  the  incon- 
ceivable rate  of  light's  velocity,  away  to  the  limits  of 
farthest  worlds.  There  are  stars  visible  to  the  telescope 
whose  light,  falling  now  upon  our  retina,  has  taken 
three  thousand  years  in  its  journey  through  space. 
What  we  see  there  to-day  is  now  three  thousand 
years  old.  And  conversely,  if  we  can  conceive  of 
intelligent  beings  as  watching  from  these  far  spaces, 
our  earthly  transactions  are  reaching  them  at  the 
same  distance  of  time.  The  tragedy  of  the  cross 
as  an  event  is  still  making  itself  known  in  those  inter- 
stellar realms.  It  is  a  piece  of  news  making  itself 
known  through  infinity,  with  what  results  there, 
upon  mind  and  heart,  who  shall  say  ?  And  this, 
which  is  true  of  one  fact,  is  true  of  all.  Nothing  in 
history  is  lost.  All  works  upon  the  all.  Everything 
is  written  in  enduring  characters  upon  the  infinite 
consciousness,  upon  the  sensorium  of  God. 

It  is,  we  say,  in  the  operation  of  the  natural,  not 
of  what  was  crudely  supposed  to  be  a  supernatural, 
that  we  discern  the  operation  of  the  spiritual,  the 
incoming  of  the  heavenly  kingdom.  We  see  now 
the  existence  of  certain  spiritual  laws,  as  sure,  as 
inevitable,  as  the  law  of  gravitation.  Is  there  not, 
for  instance,  a  moral  law  of  gravitation  as  evident 
as  that  which  Newton  discovered  ?  Is  there  not 
a  law  of  gravitation  amongst  spirits  ?  Wherever 
life    has    reached   the    stage  of   moral   consciousness 

90 


Events  and  the  Ideal 

there  works  a  force  of  mutual  attraction  ;  spirit  is 
bound  to  spirit.  Wherever  there  is  a  personaHty 
it  finds  itself  related  to  all  other  personalities.  It 
finds  in  itself  a  law  of  service,  of  duty  towards  them. 
"  By  love  serve  one  another  "  is,  we  may  say,  the 
scientific  formula  of  the  moral  order,  the  expression 
of  a  fact  as  deeply  written  in  the  constitution  of 
things  as  the  law  of  attraction  according  to  the  square 
of  the  distance  is  written  into  the  nature  of  bodies. 
This  law  is  now  showing  itself  in  its  full  force  in  our 
world.  Science,  by  its  new  apparatus  of  communication, 
is  making  human  hearts  known  everywhere  to  human 
hearts.     And  everywhere  they  find  they  are  one. 

This  assuredty  is  a  new  stage  in  the  human  progress. 
Henceforth  the  scientific  development  and  the  moral 
evolution  will  work  into  each  other  with  ever-increasing 
results.  The  pessimists  who  discern  in  modern 
invention  only  an  increase  in  the  powers  of  mischief 
and  destruction,  v.ho  iind  in  chemistry  and  aviation 
only  fresh  and  readier  methods  of  aggression  and  of 
slaughter,  are  blind  to  the  other  half  of  what  is  going 
on.  The  menacing  signs  are  only  at  the  surface. 
Beneath  them,  and  mightier  than  they,  are  the  workings 
of  the  spiritual  laws.  Against  Dreadnoughts  and 
twelve-inch  guns  are,  as  a  presage  of  the  future, 
the  developments  of  human  solidarit3^  the  sense  of 
kinship,  of  brotherhood,  "  the  movement  of  totality." 

The  growing  spiritual  consciousness  will  demand 
a  new  way  of  writing  history  j  a  new  way  of  estimating 
the  size  of  events.  Everything  of  consequence  begins 
in  ideas,  in  emotions.  There  are  volumes  written  on 
the  campaigns  of  Napoleon.     We  have  minute  and 

91 


Life  and   the  Ideal 

long-drawn  descriptions  of  Marengo,  of  Austerlitz, 
of  Jena.  Yet  the  first  glance  which  the  conquerors' 
parents  had  of  each  other,  the  word,  the  look  which 
knit  these  souls  together  and  brought  about  their  union 
— were  not  these  more  important  than  the  battles? 
For  they  produced  Napoleon.  It  is  always  the  invisible 
that  makes  the  world.  The  advent  of  an  idea  into 
a  great  mind  is  one  of  the  biggest  things  we  know, 
and  is  the  one  that  can  least  be  written  about.  It 
makes  absolutely  no  noise.  It  is  part  of  that  kingdom 
"  which  Cometh  not  with  observation."  Geordie 
Stephenson's  dim  notion  of  a  locomotive  was  mightier 
than  a  thousand  roaring  Niagaras.  Alas,  though, 
when  the  idea  is  a  wrong  one  !  When  Augustine, 
with  a  mind  tinged  with  the  Punic  gloom  of  North 
Africa,  turned  from  the  nobler  conception  of  God 
and  man  of  the  great  Greek  theologians,  to  the  idea 
of  a  harsh  and  cruel  God  who  could  will  the  eternal 
woe  of  countless  millions  of  His  human  creatures, 
he  drew  upon  his  fellows  an  amount  of  suffering, 
in  sensitive  consciences  and  tender  hearts,  compared 
with  which  the  atrocities  of  an  Attila,  of  a  Genghis 
Khan,  sink  into  insignificance.  Thank  God  that  bad 
ideas  can,  and  will  always,  in  the  long  run,  be  con- 
quered by  good  ideas.  From  the  long  Augustinian 
eclipse  we  are  now  passing  into  clearer  skies. 

The  greatest  event  of  to-day  will  probably  be 
the  birth  of  a  child.  It  will  be  known  to  perhaps 
half  a  dozen  people,  and  very  Hkely  will  not  be 
announced  even  in  the  advertisement  columns  of  the 
newspapers.  The  real  progressive  movement,  against 
which  all  the  reactionist  forces  fight  in  vain,  is  the 

92 


Events  and  the  Ideal 

coming  of  these  new  spirits  into  the  world.  FeudaUsm 
may  entrench  itself  within  its  strongholds ;  dogmatism 
may  proclaim  its  decrees  as  the  final  word.  They  are 
powerless  against  that  new  generation  which  brings 
its  own  way  of  looking  at  things.  For  each  birth 
is  a  fresh  proclamation  from  the  heart  of  things, 
a  further  unveiling  of  the  eternal  secret.  The  old 
has  had  its  say,  and  now  there  is  this  further  say. 
Earthquakes  are  trifles  compared  with  this  upheaving 
force.  Tyrants  should  tremble  at  the  cradle.  Were 
they  logical  they  would  follow  the  Herod-legend  and 
slay  all  Bethlehem's  children.  In  the  early  eighteenth 
century  the  ancient  orders  in  France  seemed  on  im- 
mutable foundations — the  order  of  the  monarchy, 
the  order  of  the  Church,  the  order  of  the  nobles. 
But  some  births  took  place — of  Rousseau  at  Geneva, 
of  Voltaire  at  Chatenay,  of  Diderot  at  Langres,  of 
Mirabeau  at  Bignon.  In  fifty  years  those  births 
had  undermined  everything  ;  had  prepared  the  crash 
of  the  old  world  and  the  beginning  of  the  new.  We 
have  not  begun  yet  to  understand  the  supreme  sig- 
nificance of  birth.  When  we  do  we  shall  have  everything 
on  a  different  footing — the  choice  of  mothers,  the  choice 
of  fathers ;  the  whole  precedents  and  environments 
of  what  is  always  the  biggest  event  in  the  world. 

Nowhere  does  the  essentially  spiritual  character 
of  our  vv'orld  show  itself  more  insistently  than  in  the 
relation  of  events  to  ourselves.  They  get  their  size 
from  our  size.  The  same  happening  is  different  to 
every  one  who  experiences  it.  Christ  died  on  the  cross, 
and  so  did  two  thieves  on  either  side  of  Him.  The 
same  death,  crucifixion ;  but  what  a  size  was  the  one 

93 


Life   and   the   Ideal 

death  as  compared  with  these  others  !  There  is  a 
shipwreck  in  mid-ocean,  where  every  soul  is  lost. 
But  if  each  could  tell  the  tale,  not  one  story  would 
be  like  another.  What  each  saw  in  it  would  be 
according  to  all  the  interior  history  of  each  soul. 
The  outside  event  is  a  raw  material.  It  is  a  kind  of 
food,  which  fuses  with  our  consciousness  and  enters 
into  its  make.  Death,  whether  it  comes  in  a  ship- 
wreck or  in  a  feather  bed,  has  every  imaginable 
aspect.  To  some  men  it  is  a  mere  horror  ;  to  a  Michel 
Angelo  it  is  **  the  only  thought  which  makes  us  know 
ourselves,  and  saves  us  from  becoming  a  prey  to  kindred 
or  friends  or  masters  ;  to  ambition,  avarice  and  other 
vices,  which  rob  a  man  of  himself." 

At  the  best  we  are  only  very  imperfectly  equipped 
for  comprehending  the  real  size  of  events.  They  are 
to  us  what  we  see  of  them,  and  that  is  so  little.  On 
their  physical  side  even  we  get  only  a  glimpse. 
"  Imagine,"  says  Kingsland,  "  what  the  universe 
would  be  in  our  consciousness  if  we  had  sense  organs 
to  correspond  to  all  the  vibrations  which  we  know 
exist  and  pass  and  repass  in  the  ether  around  us." 
We  see  the  world  through  five  senses.  How  would 
a  being  see  it  who  had  a  hundred  senses,  or  only 
our  present  senses  sharpened  to  a  higher  degree! 
What  should  we  find  in  trees,  or  stones,  in  all  com- 
monest objects,  if  only  they  yielded  their  whole  secret  I 
Be  sure  their  secret  is  not  hidden  altogether  ;  be 
sure  that  this  wonder  of  the  physical  is  always  met 
and  overtopped  by  intelligences,  higher  than  ours, 
that  know  and  master  it.  The  poet  sees  meanings 
that  the  common  man  does  not.     When,  as  Bagehot 

94 


Events  and  the  Ideal 

puts  it,  "  it  came  to  pass  in  those  days  that  William 
Wordsworth  went  up  into  the  hills,"  it  was  to  get 
visions  hidden    from  the  peasants   around  him.      In 

The  silence  that  is  in  the  starry  sky, 
The  sleep  that  is  among  the  lonely  hills, 

the  poet  saw  and  felt  unspeakable  things.  But  the 
universe  has  greater  poets  than  our  best.  An  infinite 
universe  would  not  be  infinite  were  there  not  an  infinite 
intelligence  to  understand  it. 

It  is  when  we  contemplate  things  on  this  scale 
that  we  see  how  provincial  is  that  view  of  events 
which  confines  their  significance  to  our  immediate 
perceptions.  We  think  this  accident,  this  misfortune, 
has  happened  to  us,  and  to  us  only.  But  if  the  fight 
by  which  we  perceive  it  carries  it  by  ether-vibrations 
to  farthest  worlds,  why  should  we  say  that  these 
vibrations  of  the  suffering  soul  are  less  Hmited; 
that  they  touch  only  our  spirit  and  no  other  form 
of  spirit  ?  Are  we  to  believe  what  a  modern  German 
poet  says  : 

Das  ganze  Weltall  zeigt  nur  Leid  und  Pein, 
Jedoch  das  Mitleid  fiihlt  der  Mensch  allein  ! 

'*The  universe  shows  us  only  sorrow  and  pain,  yet 
only  man  compassion  feels."  It  is  a  foolish  conclusion, 
repudiated  as  much  by  science  as  by  the  heart. 

This  matter  of  the  quality  of  events  has  a  very 
intimate  connection  with  our  interior  life,  and  with 
our  religious  estimates.  How,  for  instance,  do  our 
losses  affect  us  ?  In  a  commercial  venture  you  have 
dropped  so  much  money.  The  amount  is  doubtless 
important,  but  the  real  size  of  what  has  happened 

95 


Life   and   the   Ideal 

is  measured  by  the  effect  on  yourself.  How  far  has 
it  affected  your  faith,  your  joy  in  Hfe,  as  one  of  God's 
children  ?  It  is  precisely  here,  in  its  effect  on  character, 
on  your  resolution,  your  will-power,  your  energy,  your 
cheerfulness,  that  the  balance  is  to  be  struck  ;  that 
the  event  has  to  be  placed  to  your  credit  or  your  debit 
side. 

The  same  method  of  reckoning  has  to  be  used  in 
reference  to  the  vexed  questions  of  religious  contro- 
versy that  have  of  late  been  troubling  us.     A  man, 
we  will  say,  has  diverged  in  some  respects  from  the 
recognised  orthodoxy  of  his  time.     He  has  expressed 
disturbing    opinions.     What    is    the    rule    here    for 
judging  ?     It  is,   surely,   to   judge   the  event  by  its 
spiritual    quaUty.     Has    the    change    of    view    made 
the  man  less  sincere,  less  loving,  less  earnest  for  the 
good  ?     Or    has    it    increased    these    values  ?     There 
may    be    other    circumstances    which    should    weigh 
in  our  decision,  but  this,  surely,  is  the  chief  circum- 
stance.    Or,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man  may,  as  to 
his  opinions,  have  travelled  in  the  opposite  direction  ; 
he  began  in  liberal  thinking  and  ended  in  conservative 
thinking.     Again,   how  shall  we  judge  him   and  his 
opinions  ?     The    same    rule,    surely,    holds.     If    this 
new   conservatism   has   deepened   love   and   widened 
service  and  brought  a  new  sweetness  of  inner  temper, 
that  is  all  to  the  good.     If  it  has,  on  the  contrary, 
brought    into    the    spirit    fanaticism    and    harshness 
and  the  despotic  temper,   that,   we  have  to  say,  is 
all  to  the  bad.     The  ultimate  criterion  is  not  the  precise 
form  of  the  opinions  we  hold,  but  the  spirit  in  which 
we  hold  them.     Without  love  our  doctrines  and  our 

96 


Events  and  the  Ideal 

knowledge  are  as  sounding  brass  and  as  tinkling 
cymbal.  As  Milton  has  it,  you  may  hold  the  truth 
and  be  a  heretic  ;  heretic,  because  you  do  not  hold  it 
in  the  true  way. 

The  lesson  of  all  this  is  the  holiness  of  this  universe. 
Its  truth  is  holy.  Science  is  a  sacred  caHing.  All 
that  is  in  the  world — its  material,  its  movement, 
its  happenings — have  in  them,  when  explored  to 
the  centre,  meanings  which  are  the  food  of  the  soul. 
There  is  one  Gospel,  and  it  is  written  everywhere. 
Turn  up  the  roughest  bit  of  substance  and  its  under 
side  is  spiritual.  And  everything  that  happens  to  you, 
though  you  be  the  poorest  being  on  the  planet,  is 
also  happening  elsewhere — it  is  happening  to  the  heart 
of  God.  In  moments  of  depression  it  may  seem 
to  you  that  your  presence  here  is  the  most  insignificant 
of  events.  Could  you  see  with  His  eyes,  you  would 
know  yourself  as  part  of  His  eternity. 


97 


X 

IDEALS    AND    LIFE-PLANNING 

We  hear  a  great  deal  to-day  about  town-planning, 
and  it  is  a  fine  idea.  "  God  made  the  country,  but 
man  made  the  town"  is  a  sarcasm  which,  up  to  now, 
has  had  only  too  much  truth  in  it.  It  seems  a  very 
stupid  sort  of  man  who  has  made  most  of  our  towns. 
He  has  done  his  work  without  thinking  about  it, 
without  any  central  idea.  There  are  cities,  indeed, 
which  embody  great  thoughts.  It  was  an  imperial 
view  which  led  Constantine  to  turn  old  Byzantium 
into  a  world-capital,  commanding  two  continents 
and  two  seas.  So  was  that  of  the  Macedonian  con- 
queror who  planted  Alexandria  at  the  mouth  of  old 
Nile.  There  are  cities  which  are  a  dream  of  beauty, 
unforgettable  for  their  site,  for  their  links  with  history. 
Our  very  soul  feeds  on  Florence,  on  Edinburgh,  on 
Venice,  on  Rome.  And  yet  how  one  longs  to  reform 
them  all  !  The  Forum  and  the  Cohseum  do  not  take 
the  taste  out  of  our  mouths  of  Rome's  back  streets  ; 
Holyrood  does  not  efface  the  squalor  of  the  Canongate  ; 
you  have  so  often  to  hold  your  nose  in  Venice.  For 
a  century  past  our  English  towns,  in  their  development, 
have  sprawled  over  the  country,  eating  up  field  and 
hedgerow,  and  putting  in  their  place  acres  of  brick-and- 
mortar  abortions  that  insult  the  eye  and  poison  the 
lungs.  What  would  an  old  Greek,  fresh  from  the 
Parthenon,  think  of  our  Black  Country  ?     Thank  God 

98 


Ideals   and   Life-Planning 

that  at  last  there  is  dawning  upon  even  our  belated 
Englishman  a  sense  of  beauty.  He  is  thinking  of 
town-planning,  of  bringing  grace  to  bear  upon  our 
double  dose  of  original  sin.  He  dreams  of  garden 
cities  ;  of  places  that  will  fit  into  and  complete  the 
country,  instead  of  disfiguring  it.  If  he  had  the 
courage  to  begin  by  blowing  up  with  dynamite  half 
our  present  urban  huddlements,  and  so  starting  afresh, 
what  a  place  he  might  make  of  England  ! 

But  if  we  had  made  all  our  cities  as  beautiful  as 
Nature  herself,  we  should  only  have  begun  with  our 
problem.  For  behind  the  city  is  the  dweller  in  it. 
We  have  ideas  and  estimates  for  town-planning. 
Have  we  any  adequate  ones  for  life-planning  ?  It 
is  a  business  we  begin  very  early.  There  are  few 
boys  who  have  not  settled  on  their  career  before  they 
are  ten.  They  have,  in  fact,  by  that  time  created 
for  themselves  several  careers.  One  of  them,  in  the 
majority  of  cases,  is  that  of  an  engine-driver.  There 
has  been  a  moment  when  they  saw  themselves  as  a 
soldier  ;  another,  on  carrying  to  the  pond  their  first 
boat,  when  their  mind  was  made  up  for  the  sea.  We 
go  on  forming  plans  all  our  fife.  When  old  age  comes, 
we  look  back  upon  them  with  a  smile.  How  differently 
the  thing  has  turned  out  !  Yet  something  has  been 
turned  out,  which  is  ours  and  yet  not  ours.  But  of 
this  more   anon. 

Man  is  the  one  animal  on  this  earth  who  can,  in 
any  sort  of  sense,  plan  his  hfe.  Bees  and  ants,  who 
possess,  in  a  way,  extraordinary  intelHgence,  are  yet 
shut  up  to  one  line  of  things.  We  can  predict  what 
they  will  do  in  almost  every  hour  of  their  existence. 

99 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

They  will  build  on  one  pattern — as  old  as  the  hills. 
They  will  perform  one  particular  kind  of  work,  and 
then  die.  Man  himself  here  is  only  beginning  to 
learn  his  freedom.  In  some  regions  he  has  not  even 
begun.  In  India,  generation  after  generation  follows 
the  trade,  the  customs,  the  life-habits  to  which  their 
birth,  their  caste,  predestinate  them.  In  the  West, 
too,  there  have  been  ages  of  changelessness.  We  have 
met  a  labourer  in  Ireland  who,  at  the  age  of  seventy, 
had  not  been  outside  his  own  parish.  But  all  that  is 
passing.  The  labourer  to-day,  beginning  in  placid 
Dorset,  may  find  himself  at  Klondike,  or  shepherding  in 
an  Austrahan  back-block.  In  America  a  man  will 
try  life  along  half  a  dozen  roads,  and  not  unsuccessfully, 
either.  With  Abraham  Lincoln,  he  may  start  as 
rail-splitter  and  end  up  as  President  of  the  RepubHc 
Science  and  industry  are  between  them  opening  up  all 
manner  of  new  occupations.  No  other  age  has  been 
comparable  to  our  own  for  the  variety  it  offers  in  hfe- 
planning. 

But  others  besides  ourselves  have  a  voice  in  this 
work.  Life  is  an  estate  to  which  we  succeed,  and  it 
has  passed  through  a  good  many  hands  before  it 
reaches  our  own.  We  build  with  materials  which  we 
did  not  make,  and  on  a  site  which  we  did  not  choose. 
We  are  on  all  sides  hemmed  in  with  Hmitations,  some 
of  Nature's  ordering,  some  which  society  has  ordained. 
Heredity,  which  a  French  writer  describes  as  "the 
father's  hand  stretched  over  his  children  from  the 
tomb,"  holds  us  in  its  grip.  And  to  the  dead  ancestor 
succeeds  the  Hving  parent.  One  of  his  first  responsi- 
bilities— God  help  him,  it  is  a  serious  one ! — ^^is  to  choose 

100 


Ideals  and  Life- Planning 

careers  for  his  children.  It  becomes  more  and  more 
difficult.  One  can  lay  down  no  law  here.  Yet,  as  a 
general  principle,  we  know  of  nothing  better  in  this  line 
than  is  exhibited  for  us  in  the  example  of  Quaker 
John  Woolman.  In  his  delightful  autobiography  he 
tells  us  that,  prospering  in  his  business,  he  gave  it  up, 
whilst  yet  in  his  prime,  for  three  reasons  :  first,  because 
he  did  not  wish  to  be  rich ;  second,  because  he  desired 
to  leave  his  children  the  blessing  of  labour  and  effort 
for  themselves  ;  and,  third,  because  he  felt  it  his 
duty  as  a  Christian  to  devote  a  certain  part  of  his  Ufe 
definitely  and  completely  to  the  work  of  the  Gospel. 
The  reasons  hold  well  together.  Indeed,  the  highest 
life  is  always  a  harmonious  one. 

But  others  besides  parents  take  a  hand  in  life- 
planning.  It  has  been  done  on  the  great  scale.  The 
world's  history  up  to  now  has  consisted  largely  of 
attempts,  mostly  mischievous  ones,  on  the  part  of 
strong  men  to  regulate  the  careers  of  weak  ones. 
For  outstanding  example,  take  that  reply  of  Napoleon 
to  a  lady  on  the  mission  of  women  :  "The  business 
of  your  sex,  madame,  is  to  give  me  soldiers."  Yes, 
for  ages  the  business  of  the  lower  world  has  been  to 
supply  ambition  with  the  material  for  its  projects. 
Life-planning  has  been  made  part  of  a  scheme  of 
wholesale  murder  in  the  interests  of  aggression.  For 
this  millions  of  men  have  been  reared,  trained,  drilled, 
and  then  sent  like  beasts  to  the  slaughter.  State 
poHcies  have  been  founded  on  the  ethics  of  piracy. 
Their  maxims  have  been  summed  up  in  that  dictum 
of  Machiavelli  :  "  It  is  frequently  necessary  for  the 
upholding  of  the  State  to  go  to  work  against  faith, 

lOI 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

against  charity,  against  humanity,  against  religion." 
As  Fenelon  once,  with  magnificent  courage,  put  it  to 
"  the  most  Christian  King,"  Louis  XIV.  :  "  You  hang 
a  poor  wretch  for  stealing  a  crown  on  the  high  road 
in  his  extreme  need;  and  treat  as  a  hero  the  man 
who  conquers  a  province,  or  who  unjustly  seizes  the 
territory  of  a  neighbouring  State."  It  was  what 
Augustine  had  said  before  him :  "Aggressive  war  is 
brigandage  on  the  great  scale." 

For  ages  this  has  gone  on,  but  now  we  discern  a 
change.  We  discern  the  beginning  of  a  new  kind  of 
life-planning.  We  talk  of  crowned  kings,  of  wheat 
kings,  of  steel  kings,  of  money  kings.  But  another 
reign  is  commencing — that  of  the  thought  kings. 
They,  in  fact,  have  always  ruled,  but  their  thought 
has  hitherto  been  an  inferior  thought.  Intellect  has 
had  pride  and  ambition  at  the  back  of  it.  It  is  at 
last  coming  definitely  under  the  sway  of  morality, 
under  the  influence  of  a  higher  world.  Ideas  rule  the 
world,  and  there  is  a  turn  in  the  tide  of  ideas.  We 
are  witnessing  in  the  public  mind  a  transformation 
of  values.  It  has  been  said  that  if  the  courage,  the 
capital,  the  power  of  organisation  and  of  initiative, 
that  hitherto  have  been  exhibited  in  campaigns  and 
on  the  battlefield  could  be  turned  in  another  direction, 
that  of  fighting  against  humanity's  real  evils,  we  should 
have,  in  one  generation,  something  like  Paradise 
regained.  That  is  precisely  what  is  coming.  Translate 
physical  courage  into  moral  courage,  the  courage  of 
Austerlitz  into  the  courage  of  Calvary,  and  the  one 
great  victory  will  have  been  achieved.  This,  however, 
will  not  be  a  battle,  but  a  long  campaign ;    but  the 

102 


Ideals  and   Life-Planning 

campaign  has  begun.  The  thought  kings  are  organ- 
ising it.  Legislators  have  already  caught  the  idea 
of  Montesquieu  :  "In  Iree  communities  a  good 
legislator  gives  himself  less  to  punishing  crimes  than 
to  preventing  them ;  he  applies  himself  more  to 
securing  morals  than  to  inflicting  punishments." 

The  best  thought  of  our  time  is  now  applying  itself 
to  planning  lives  for  people  who  have  no  plans  of  their 
own.  The  thoughtless  are  to  be  helped  by  the  thought- 
ful. Lads  bred  in  the  slums  of  our  cities,  who  rush 
into  easy  openings  that  turn  out  to  be  blind  alleys,  are 
to  be  headed  off  and  put  into  careers  that  lead  to  some- 
thing. The  knotty  problems  of  land  and  labour,  of 
the  distribution  of  population,  of  education,  of  securing 
proper  mental  outfit  for  the  life-struggle — all  these 
are  being  settled,  not  by  the  blundering  mind  of  the 
populace,  but  by  the  experts  of  scientific  philanthropy. 
The  mighty  dreamers  of  the  past,  Plato  with  his 
RepubHc,  glorious  More  with  his  "  Utopia,"  MarsigHo 
of  Padua  with  his  scheme  of  universal  peace,  could 
they  have  looked  upon  our  day,  would  have  seen  all 
the  best  they  longed  for  beginning  to  assert  itself, 
coming  to  its  own.  Just  beginning  to  dawn  upon  us 
are  the  superb  possibilities  of  the  social  life.  At  present 
our  cities  are  for  the  most  part  howling  deserts  of 
isolated,  lonely  personalities.  Can  we  conceive  the 
delights  of  a  community  where  all  know  each  other, 
where  all  love  and  serve  each  other  ?  That  surely 
would  realise  the  vision  of  the  mediaeval  singer  : 

Coelestis  urbs  Jerusalem 
Beata  pacis  visio. 

And  that  is  coming. 

103 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

But  let  us  here  make  no  mistake.  There  are 
numbers  of  amateur  Ufe-planners  in  this  country  and 
elsewhere,  who  propose  to  reach  this  millennium  by 
ways  that  are  not  millennial.  We  are  to  have  a  sort 
of  French  Revolution  on  a  universal  scale,  where 
everybody  is  to  be  made  happy  by  a  redistribution  of 
goods.  Well,  there  are  some  redistributions  that  are 
necessary,  and  that  are  going  to  be  made.  They  are, 
in  fact,  being  made.  The  curse  of  poverty  is,  we  see, 
within  reach  of  legislation,  and  we  are  beginning  to 
legislate.  SpoUators  will  be  made  to  disgorge  ;  the 
robber  laws  will  be  repealed,  and  righteous  ones  put 
in  their  place.  The  people  will  recover  its  stolen 
heritages.  But  is  anyone  so  blind  as  to  suppose  that 
the  human  hunger  can  be  satisfied  with  bread  ?  That 
when  the  human  stomach  is  filled,  and  its  material 
cravings  all  met,  that  we  have  completed  our  scheme 
of  life-planning  ?  There  v/ould  be  no  surer  way  of 
turning  earth  into  the  vividest  hell  than  to  fulfil  this 
programme  of  materialistic  Socialism;  to  concentrate, 
that  is,  the  whole  force  of  the  human  intellect  and  will 
upon  its  material  having,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
swamp  and  destroy  its  spiritual  life.  Happily,  such 
schemes  are  as  impossible  as  they  are  stupid.  They 
reckon  without  human  nature,  which  is  not  built  that 
way. 

There  can  be  no  communal  Hfe-planning  with  a 
chance  of  success  apart  from  an  individual  life-planning. 
The  soul  of  all  improvement  is  the  improvement  of  the 
soul.  You  cannot  get  a  decent  piano  unless  all  its 
strings  are  in  tune,  or  tuneable.  There  is  no  way  of 
producing  a  good  building  out  of  rotten  materials. 

104 


Ideals   and   Life-Planning 

And  hence  it  is  that  Christianity  provides  the  only 
possible  democracy  by  its  insistence  on  the  reclamation 
of  the  individual.  You  will  get  your  perfect  State 
when  its  members  are  like  the  disciples  of  old,  '*  of  one 
heart  and  one  soul." 

And  while  the  ideal  State  is  thus  in  the  making, 
what  of  ourselves  ?  We  have  our  own  work  cut  out 
here,  and  we  may  now  return  to  that.  There  is  to-day, 
as  we  have  said,  an  immense  choice  of  careers,  and  an 
ever-increasing  variety  of  circumstance.  But  there 
are  some  general  principles  which  apply  to  them  all. 
Let  us  make  up  our  minds,  for  one  thing,  that  our 
world,  our  circumstances,  our  success  or  failure,  our 
happiness  or  woe,  will  be  all  strictly  and  inevitabty 
according  to  what  we  are.  The  more  of  us  there  is, 
the  more  will  life  yield  us.  It  is  inexhaustible  in 
itself ;  the  question  here  is  of  our  receptive  capacity. 
And  so  the  question  of  inner  culture  and  inner  dis- 
cipline becomes  paramount.  Taine  was  here  on  the 
right  track  when  at  twenty-one  he  wrote  :  "  My 
only  desire  is  to  improve  myself  in  order  to  be  worth 
a  little  more  everyday.  .  .  .  Being  a  true  Sybarite, 
I  am  going  to  sweep  and  garnish  this  inmost  dwelling, 
and  to  set  up  in  it  some  true  ideas,  some  good  intentions, 
and  a  few  sincere  affections."  He  is  in  line  with  that 
word  of  the  "  Phsedrus  "  :  "  Grant  me  to  become  pure 
within ;  and  whatever  external  things  I  have,  let  them 
be  agreeable  to  what  is  within.  I  would  reckon 
the  wise  man  rich."  Yes,  indeed  ;  the  damning 
heresy  of  our  day  is  its  wrong  view  of  riches.  We  are 
here  in  a  species  of  insanity  which  will  only  be  cured 
by  accepting  the  Gospel  view  of  what  constitutes  the 

105 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

real  wealth.  Life  for  all  of  us  consists  just  in  the 
number  and  quality  of  its  sensations,  of  its  ideas, 
of  its  sentiments.  The  man  who  makes  millions  has, 
after  all,  only  his  inner  feeling  as  their  product.  And 
dollars  can  only  turn  out  a  very  inferior  inner  article. 
The  man  who  gets  the  full  life  is  he  who  carries  to  it 
the  full  soul.  Says  P^re  Gratry — a  writer,  by  the  way, 
whom  our  English  Protestant  preachers  would  do  well 
to  study — "Happy  those  pure  and  childlike  souls,  those 
saintly  souls,  with  whom  the  vision  of  a  flower,  of  a 
stream ,  the  odour  of  a  field  of  wheat,  the  view  of  a  ray  of 
light,  or  of  a  mist  rising  from  the  earth,  touches  the 
heart,  and  makes  it  tremble  with  love."  That  was  the 
meaning  of  Francis  of  Assisi's  gospel  of  poverty.  The 
saint  was  a  philosopher.  He  gave  up  all  in  order  to 
possess  all.  He  entered  into  the  innermost  owning  of 
things,  the  owning  which  comes  from  a  sense  of  unity. 
To  him  all  things  were  friends;  all  ministers  to  his  joy. 
He  was  intimate  with  birds  and  flowers,  with  trees 
and  the  wind  ;  he  called  fire  and  water  his  brothers. 
He  was  one  with  them  all  because  one  with  God. 

The  circumstances  of  our  time  are  very  different  from 
those  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  so  are  the  ideas ; 
but  there  are  principles  underlying  this  view  of  life 
which  are  eternal,  and  which  none  of  us  can  afford  to 
miss.  The  upshot  of  it  is  that  everything  we  possess 
is  in  ourselves,  and  that  all  depends  on  the  quality  of 
this  inner  possession.  Here  are  all  the  values.  The 
things  that  in  their  inward  impact  make  us  proud, 
or  lazy,  or  selfish,  or  animally  indulgent,  are  bad 
things,  poverty-producing  things,  for  they  impoverish 
the  soul.     And  the  things  which  make  us  humble, 

io6 


Ideals  and   Life-Planning 

loving,  patient,  industrious,  serviceable  and  inwardly 
joyful  are  good  things,  are  the  world's  riches,  for  they 
enrich  the  soul.  A  world-view  of  this  kind  will, 
amongst  other  results,  put  us  in  a  new  attitude  towards 
our  sorrows.  Be  sure  we  shall  have  them;  no  con- 
ceivable circumstances  can  keep  them  out.  But  with 
a  right  inner  discipline  we  shall  set  ourselves  to  make 
the  most  of  them.  And  we  shall  find  that  they  con- 
tain infinite  things.  It  was  said  of  Goethe  that  he 
turned  all  his  griefs  into  poems.  We  can  do  that 
with  our  own ;  making  of  them  life-poems,  better 
than  any  that  were  ever  expressed  in  verse. 

But  the  truest  word  here  has  yet  to  be  said.  For 
experienced  and  purified  souls  the  one  supreme  conso- 
lation lies  in  the  sense  that  our  own  Ufe-planning  has 
throughout  been  under  the  superintendence  of  a 
greater  architect  than  ourselves.  We  referred  at  the 
beginning  to  the  way  in  which  our  separate  schemes 
have  a  way  of  getting  cut  into  and  overridden.  How 
huge  a  disappointment  is  it  at  the  time  !  Holy 
George  Herbert,  as  his  friends  loved  to  call  him,  had, 
as  a  young  man,  laid  out  his  plans  for  a  successful 
career  at  Court.  The  unlooked-for  death  of  his  patron 
broke  up  all  his  prospects.  His  entry  into  the  Church 
was,  at  the  time,  a  sort  of  pis  aller.  Yet  we  could  have 
spared  the  courtier;  we  could  not  have  spared  the  saint 
and  poet.  It  was  a  cannon-shot  which  broke  his  leg 
at  Pampeluna  that  spoiled  Loyola's  military  career, 
but  it  was  this  seeming  accident  which  unlocked  the 
fountain  of  his  spiritual  force.  Our  own  life-history, 
looked  at  from  a  material  standpoint,  seems  often 
to  have  been  only  a  series  of  disasters.    That  disabling 

107 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

illness,  the  long  pressure  of  poverty,  cruel  bereave- 
ments, the  shattering  of  such  bright  hopes,  what  a 
story  it  has  been  !  In  moments  of  depression  we  say 
with  the  patriarch,  •*  Few  and  evil  have  been  the  days 
and  the  years  of  my  pilgrimage."  But  that  will  never 
be  the  view  of  faith.  In  that  view  existence  is  victory. 
Out  of  the  hurly-burly  of  the  past  we  see  a  something 
emerging,  which,  as  we  contemplate  it,  fills  us  with  a 
solemn  joy.  It  is  the  creation  of  an  individuality, 
ours,  of  a  spiritual  structure,  of  '*  a  house  not  made 
with  hands."  God  has  wrought  at  the  making  of  it; 
and  it  is  a  something  dear  to  God.  And  because  it  is 
His  work  it  will  not  perish.  We  await  without  fear 
the  consummation  of  that  work  ;  a  consummation 
which  will  reveal  the  failures  as  successes,  the  sorrows 
as  stones  in  the  building.  We  need  ask  no  better  fate, 
no  deeper  joy,  than  to  know  our  past,  our  present  and 
our  future  as  His  planning,  a  work  which  will  show 
itself  finally  as  worthy  of  Himself. 


io8 


XI 

ARISTOCRACY    AND    THE    IDEAL 

Aristocracy  is  a  good  word  which  has  of  late 
fallen  into  bad  odour.  It  has  suffered  from  evil 
alliances,  from  disreputable  connections.  Etymologi- 
cally  it  means  the  government  of  the  best,  and  could 
there  be  anything  better  than  that  ?  It  has  neighbour 
words,  too,  of  the  highest  respectability.  King,  if  we 
may  take  Carlyle's  somewhat  doubtful  derivation, 
is  the  Koenig,  canning  man,  the  man  who  can,  who 
is  able.  Our  duke,  who  is  just  now  quoted  so  cheaply 
in  the  market,  is  originally  dux,  the  leader  or  comman- 
der. Lord,  some  say  is  from  law-ward  ;  others  from 
bread-ward,  an  origin  which  none  might  be  ashamed 
of.  And  Plato,  with  a  sort  of  sad  cynicism,  reminds 
us  that  the  *'  tyrant  "  begins  always  as  a  protector 
of  the  people. 

Aristocracy,  as  an  idea,  has  carried  itself  into  the 
highest  levels.  It  is  a  commanding  note  in  theology. 
It  assumes  one  Supreme  Power  as  the  head  and  centre 
of  things.  Its  heaven  is  conceived  as  a  theocracy,  and 
secondarily  as  a  hierarchy.  Cherubim,  archangels 
and  the  angelic  host  form  the  descending  scale  of  an 
aristocratic  system  which  rules  in  the  unseen.  And 
the  most  democratic  republics  accept  this  idea. 
America,  which  does  not  believe  in  kings,  and  has  no 

109 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

House  of  Lords,  reproduces  them  in  its  divinity.  It 
believes  in  one  God,  and  sings  its  Te  Deum  with  the 
rest  of  us.  And  practical  life  is  largely  founded  on 
this  basis.  The  world's  commerce  is  built  on  it. 
Every  firm  has  its  head  and  its  successive  ranks  of 
subordinates.  The  ship  is  essentially  an  aristocratic 
institution.  The  captain  is  king  there,  and  that  by 
the  old  definition  of  the  word.  His  authority  is  that  of 
the  "canning"  man,  the  man  who  is  able,  who  knows 
most.  The  notion  that  one  man  is  as  good  as 
another  would  never  bring  the  vessel  into  port. 

The  family  tradition  tells  the  same  story.  The 
father  has  not  been  elected  to  his  position.  He  holds 
it  for  life,  and  by  a  sort  of  right  divine.  Nature  herself 
works  apparently  on  this  principle.  The  head  on  our 
shoulders  is  lord  of  the  body.  It  is  at  the  top,  and 
rules  all  the  lower  members.  The  thought  in  the  brain 
transmits  its  orders  to  nerves  and  puts  the  muscles 
in  motion.  If  revolt  breaks  out  there  we  call  it 
paralysis. 

The  principle,  then,  seems  so  far  to  have  justified 
itself.  But  in  its  working  a  complication  has  set  in 
which  has  raised  all  manner  of  questions.  The 
complication  lies  in  the  query,  "  What  is  the  best  ?  " 
"  How  are  we  to  find  and  keep  it  ?  "  In  earlier  days 
the  answer  was  easy.  The  best  was  the  strongest. 
The  supremacy  was  muscular.  A  man  won  his  way 
to  the  front  by  his  thews  and  sinews.  Later,  brain 
power  came  into  play  and  the  conquest  was  to  cunning, 
combined  with  courage.  And  that  is  how  matters 
continued  for  a  long  period  of  history.  The  English 
nobility  began  in  piracy  and  conquest.     The  Danish 

no 


Aristocracy  and   the   Ideal 

Vikings  who  swept  the  land  with  fire  and  sword, 
the  Normans  who  followed  them,  established  them- 
selves by  right  of  the  strongest.  And  this  title  so 
far  was  a  real  one,  founded  in  the  fact  of  things. 
The  Vikings,  the  earls  and  barons  who  followed,  were 
a  genuine  article.  Their  force  was  a  real  one.  If  any- 
one contested  their  right  they  were  there  to  defend  it. 
"  By  my  sword  I  have  won  my  lands,"  said  Earl  de 
Warrenne  on  an  historic  occasion,  "  and  by  my  sword 
I  will  keep  them."  They  were  there  as  the  best  men 
of  the  time,  as  best  was  then  counted.  And  they 
recognised  duties  as  well  as  rights.  Noblesse  oblige 
stood  for  something.  Their  tenure  was  on  condition 
that  they  did  things  ;  raised  troops  for  the  King's 
service  ;  kept  law  and  order  within  their  boundaries. 

Chivalry  brought  a  yet  higher  idea.  In  old  Malory — 
the  quarry  out  of  which  Tennyson  wrought  the 
exquisite  figures  of  the  "Idylls" — we  have  knighthood 
presented  as  a  really  noble  order.  The  true  knight  is 
to  be  not  only  a  man  of  his  hands,  but  essentially  a 
gentleman.  What  a  touch  is  that  in  the  story  of  Sir 
Beaumains  :  "  Truly,  madam,  said  Linet  unto  her 
sister,  well  may  he  be  a  king's  son,  for  he  hath  many 
good  taches  on  him,  for  he  is  courteous  and  mild  and 
the  most  suffering  man  that  ever  I  met  withal." 
Malory's  heroes  show  their  good  blood  by  their  good 
character. 

Here,  then,  we  have  an  aristocracy  founded  on 
facts,  and  powerfully  backed  by  the  nature  of  things. 
But  with  the  movement  of  time  a  weakness  arises  in 
the  system  which  now  threatens  to  become  a  fatal  one. 
Aristocracy   as   thus   conceived   carried   with   it   the 

III 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

principle  of  heredity  ;  and  heredity,  though  it  has 
something  to  say  for  itself,  is  nevertheless  a  departure 
from  the  original  idea.  It  is  natural  that  a  man, 
having  won  power  and  position  for  himself,  should 
desire  to  transmit  them,  whole  and  unimpaired,  to  his 
children.  But  a  man's  son  is  not  the  man  himself. 
He  may  be  a  fool,  or  merely  commonplace.  Marcus 
Aurelius  may  beget  a  Commodus.  And  then  you  have 
a  breach,  a  direct  negation  of  the  theory  ;  you  have 
no  longer  a  government  of  the  best. 

Besides  this,  a  nother  and  a  surer  influence  works 
for  the  decay  of  the  hereditary  system.  In  a  country 
of  settled  conditions,  such  as  our  own,  the  environment 
which  produced  the  first  men,  the  founders  of  a  line, 
changes  into  another,  which,  so  far  from  being  favour- 
able, is  apt  to  be  destructive  of  the  type.  Carlyle 
counts  among  the  redemptive  features  of  a  nation 
"  the  certainty  of  heroes  being  born  to  it."  Yes  ; 
but  where,  in  what  rank  ?  In  the  times  when  a 
nation,  torn  with  convulsion,  looks  round  for  its 
strongest  man  to  give  a  lead,  it  is  not  the  established 
nobility  that  produces  him.  Scotland  finds  him 
in  John  Knox,  the  obscure  monk  ;  Germany,  in  Luther, 
the  peasant's  son  ;  England,  in  Oliver  Cromwell,  the 
brewer  of  Huntingdon ;  France,  in  Napoleon,  the 
beggarly  Corsican. 

The  environment  of  luxury,  the  long,  undisputed 
possession  of  privilege,  is,  we  say,  not  the  atmosphere 
which  Nature  chooses  for  the  production  of  her  best. 
It  has,  one  may  admit,  certain  advantages  in  the 
breeding  of  types.  It  is  a  school  of  "  the  high  manner." 
Aristotle  in  the  *'  Rhetoric  "  notes  the  difference  of 


112 


Aristocracy  and  the   Ideal 

manner  between  people  who  have  lately  acquired 
wealth  and  those  who  have  long  enjoyed  it ;  he 
saw  the  defects  in  this  respect  of  the  nouveaux  riches. 
In  addition,  in  our  own  country,  the  nobility,  by  living 
an  open-air  life,  choosing  healthy  and  beautiful  women 
for  their  mates,  and  in  recruiting  their  ranks  by  new- 
comers of  a  vigorous  type  from  other  classes,  have 
secured  in  this  way  some  distinct  points  in  the  game. 

But  they  are  heavily,  it  would  seem  fatally,  handi- 
capped. They  lack  an  element  which  is  vital — the 
element  of  struggle.  Born  at  the  top,  there  is  no 
climbing  for  them.  Their  ancestors  gained  their 
place  by  doing  things,  but,  alas  !  what  is  there  to-day 
for  these  people  to  do  ?  We  see  what  it  is  they  accom- 
plish. At  the  public  school  and  the  university  they 
are  slackers.  Work  is  bad  form,  and  why  should  they 
work  ?  For  scholars,  for  inventors,  for  artists,  for 
leaders  in  science,  we  look  anywhere  but  in  the  modern 
peerage.  Is  there  enough  intellect  in  the  present 
dukedom  of  England  to  produce  a  second-rate  fiddler  ? 
Our  aristocracy  may  be  this,  that  and  the  other,  but 
in  the  fierce  competition  of  the  nations  in  arts,  in 
letters,  in  science,  in  industry,  in  religion,  in  all  that 
makes  a  people  great,  it  is  assuredly  not  in  that 
direction  we  look  for  inspiration. 

Our  English  aristocracy,  in  these  later  times,  has 
had  no  such  crimes  laid  to  its  charge  as  that  French 
one  which  perished  in  the  Great  Revolution.  It  has 
exercised  no  droit  du  seigneur ;  it  has  erected  no 
Bastille  ;  it  has  had  no  law  which  permitted  a  lord 
to  slay  two  or  three  peasants  in  order  to  give  himself 
a  blood  bath  when  returning  from  the  chase  ;   it  has 

113  H 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

produced  no  Foulon  with  his  cry,  "  Let  the  people  eat 
grass."  A  lord  is  still  a  popular  social  personage. 
And  yet  there  is  a  heavy  indictment  against  the  order. 
It  is  t«  its  influence,  and  that  of  the  Church  which 
has  been  its  ally,  that  England  is  to-day  one  of  the 
worst-educated  countries  of  the  Western  world ; 
that  while  Scotland  has  had  for  centuries  its  popular 
universities  where  the  sons  of  peasants  could  equip 
themselves  with  the  best  learning  that  was  going,  the 
English  University  was  the  jealously  guarded  preserve 
of  one  class  and  of  one  faith.  It  is  owing  to  the  same 
influence  that  the  Englishman  is  a  landless  man ; 
that  while  France  possesses  its  millions  of  peasant 
proprietors,  strong  in  the  sense  of  property  and  of 
independence,  the  English  people,  robbed  of  its  heritage 
in  the  country  by  Commons  Enclosure  Acts  and  other 
methods  of  spoliation,  has  been  driven  into  the  towns, 
there  to  wither  from  lack  of  fresh  air  ;  that  its  peasantry 
— what  is  left  of  them — dwindle  before  our  eyes,  with 
a  starvation  wage,  with  no  interest  in  the  soil  they  till, 
the  forlornest  of  mortals.  It  is  to  the  aristocracy  we 
owe  the  fact — astonishing,  surely,  when  we  think  of  it — 
that  the  Englishman  who  in  his  thirst  for  scenery 
and  adventure  wanders  over  the  four  continents, 
who  makes  Switzerland  and  Norway  his  playgrounds, 
is  actually  debarred  his  own  scenery  ;  finds  access  to 
mountain  and  moorland  scenery  shut  off  by  notice- 
boards. 

The  peers  are  at  present  our  legislators.  What  is 
their  record  in  this  capacity?  John  Morley,  writing 
on  Turgot,  observes  that  "  titular  aristocracies  post- 
pone   the    larger   interests    to   the   narrow  interests 

114 


Aristocracy  and    the   Ideal 

of  their  order."  The  sentence  is  an  apt  summary 
of  the  procedures  of  our  hereditary  Chamber. 
The  story  is  one  of  stubborn  resistance  to  every 
endeavour  after  social  and  economic  betterment. 
Religious  liberty,  extension  of  the  franchise,  reform 
of  our  barbarous  criminal  law,FactoryActs,  Poor  Law 
reform,  all  these  endeavours  after  justice  and  humanit}^ 
have  found  in  the  Upper  House  a  giant  Maul  who 
barred  their  progress,  who  maimed  where  he  could  not 
destroy.  In  view  of  its  past  history  and  of  its  present 
pretensions,  one  ponders  those  words  of  Milton  on  the 
Lords  question  of  his  day,  a  question  for  which  the 
Commons  of  the  time  found  its  own  solution:  "For 
should  the  management  of  the  republic  be  entrusted 
to  persons  to  whom  no  one  would  willingly  entrust 
the  management  of  his  private  concerns,  and  the 
treasury  of  the  State  be  left  to  the  care  of  those  who 
had  lavished  their  own  fortunes  in  an  infamous 
prodigality  ?  " 

In  fact,  a  fatal  question  here  emerges,  one  w^hich 
Nature  herself  is  outlining,  and  with  ever  sterner 
insistence.  What,  after  all,  is  the  use  of  our  present- 
day  aristocracy  ?  What  is  their  reason  for  being  ? 
It  is  apparent  that  the  name  they  carry  is  a  misnomer. 
Aristocracy,  as  we  have  said,  is  the  government,  the 
leadership,  of  the  best.  But  are  these  people  the  best  ? 
Their  ancestors  were,  according  to  the  standards  of  the 
time.  They  reached  their  place  by  their  deeds  and  their 
qualities.  Can  their  present  representatives  offer 
any  such  credentials  ?  The  receiving  and  spending 
of  rents  is  hardly  in  itself  an  heroic  performance. 
The  pursuits  and  qualifications  of  a  majority  of  them 

115 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

are  on  a  level  with  those  of  the  gamekeeper  and  the 
jockey,  with  perhaps  that  of  a  billiard-marker  thrown 
in.  What  they  amount  to  as  upholders  of  a  moral 
standard,  the  memoirs  of  a  Creevey  and  a  Greville  in 
a  past  generation,  and  of  a  Countess  of  Cardigan  in 
our  own,  are  a  sufficient  evidence. 

It  is  inevitable — the  operation  of  the  law  of  Nature 
which  gave  their  ancestors  their  place — that  a  class 
which  has  ceased  to  do  the  great  things,  which  has 
lost  the  capacity  of  leading,  must  cease  to  lead.  The 
law  of  aristocracy  is  supreme,  and  will  brook  no 
exceptions ;  the  best  must  win,  must  come  to  the  top. 
The  happiness,  not  only  of  the  best,  but  of  the  second 
best  and  of  all  grades  behind,  depends  on  that.  Plato 
recognised  this  principle  when  he  made  the  rulers  of 
his  ideal  State  to  be  the  picked  men,  trained  for  the 
post  by  a  rigorous  discipline.  In  all  the  other  great 
departments  of  civilised  life  we  recognise  the  principle. 
In  literature,  in  art,  in  industry,  in  science,  in  active 
politics,  the  supreme  place  is  accorded  to  the  supreme 
capacity. 

And  it  is  precisely  here  that  the  aristocratic  idea, 
truly  conceived,  allies  itself  at  once  to  democracy  and 
to  religion.  Democracy  demands  the  liberty  of  the 
people,  and  rightly ;  but  what  is  liberty  ?  Says  Cicero 
with  profound  insight,  "  We  are  servants  of  all  the 
laws  that  we  may  be  free."  True  liberty  is  not  a 
power  to  do  wrong,  but  to  do  right.  And  with  the 
moral  development  of  society  liberty  will  consist  in  the 
freedom  from  external  constraints,  such  as  gaols, 
militarisms  and  the  like,  the  motive-power  becoming 
more  and  more  an  inner  one  ;   a  constraint,  not  of  the 

Ii6 


Aristocracy  and  the   Ideal 

magistrate  or  the  gaoler,  but  of  the  conscience  ;  an 
enlistment  of  all  the  powers  in  the  service  of  the  best, 
and  that  from  the  free  delight  in  and  love  of  the  best. 

And  thus,  for  final  word,  is  it  that  in  a  pure  and 
spiritual  religion  we  find  the  junction  and  perfect 
harmony  of  the  aristocratic  and  the  democratic  idea. 
The  aristocratic,  for  religion  is  the  government  of  the 
best  ;  of  God  as  Best  in  the  universe,  and  in  man  of  the 
rule  in  him  of  the  higher  over  the  lower.  Here,  too, 
is  the  pure  democracy,  which  proclaims  that  the 
highest  gift  which  life  offers  us,  God's  presence  and 
dominance  in  the  soul,  is  our  common  heritage,  the 
inheritance  of  one  and  all. 


"7 


XII 

THE    IDEAL    IN    DEMOCRACY 

In  the  last  chapter  we  discussed  aristocracy  and  the 
ideal.  It  may  be  well  now,  as  a  companion  study, 
to  deal  with  what  is  generally  regarded  as  the  opposite 
idea,  that  of  democracy.  More  even  than  in  the 
previous  subject  do  we  need  here  to  have  some  clear 
thinking.  And  for  the  reason  that  not  only  is  this 
the  insistent  and  burning  question  of  our  time,  but 
that  it  is  the  one  on  which  people  are  the  most  easily 
misled,  and  are  exposed  to  the  most  fatal  mistakes. 

Democracy,  from  the  Greek  demos  people,  and  kratos 
power,  is  a  word  which  tells  its  own  story.  It  is 
government  by  the  people,  or,  as  in  these  times  we 
more  fully  and  forcibly  express  it,  government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people.  It  is  an 
idea  which,  thus  barely  stated,  lends  itself  easily  to 
ridicule.  It  has  been  a  subject  for  the  wits  of  superior 
persons  in  all  ages.  How  we  have  all  laughed  at 
Cleon  the  tanner  whom  Aristophanes  so  mercilessly 
lashes,  the  "mobocrat,"  who,  for  his  own  purposes, 
played  on  the  passions  of  the  Athenian  populace. 
Euripides  was  bitterly  denounced  by  his  contem- 
poraries for  introducing  low  fellows  —  slaves,  fish- 
women,  cobblers — into  his  plays.  Casca,  in  Shake- 
speare's   Julius  CcBsar,    represents    the    upper    class 

ii8 


The   Ideal   in  Democracy 

feeling  about  the  "  rabblement,"  who  "  hooted  and 
clapped  their  chapped  hands,  and  threw  up  their 
sweaty  night-caps,  and  emitted  such  a  deal  of  stinking 
breath  that  it  had  almost  choked  Caesar."  Even 
John  Knox  speaks  of  "  the  rascal  multitude  "  ;  and 
we  remember  Carlyle's  grim  suggestion  that  the  people 
of  these  islands  are  "  mostly  fools."  We  are  asked 
whether  the  national  wisdom  is  to  be  sought  in  the 
vote  of  the  least  wise  ;  whether  it  is  not  desirable  to 
**  weigh  heads  rather  than  count  them."  All  this  is 
concentrated  in  the  saying  of  an  English  bishop,  Dr. 
Porteous,  that  "  the  people  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  laws  except  to  obey  them." 

Nothing  is  easier  than  to  frame  an  indictment 
against  the  multitude.  It  may,  however,  occur  to 
us  before  setting  about  it  to  ask  whether  the  world  is 
to  be  reformed  or  Paradise  regained  by  the  framing 
of  indictments  ?  We  may  indeed  begin  our  advocacy 
of  democracy  by  admitting  everything  that  can 
justly  be  laid  to  its  door :  all  its  excesses,  its  ignorances, 
its  failures.  We  are  by  no  means  anxious  to  be 
governed  by  ignorance,  or  by  brute  passion,  or  by 
the  mob  orator.  The  world,  let  us  be  assured,  is  not 
advancing  to  that  consummation.  More  than  ever  it 
cries  for  the  wisdom  of  the  wisest,  for  the  tools  to  be 
in  the  hands  of  those  who  can  use  them,  for  the  leader- 
ship of  the  supreme  ability.  Let  us,  then,  at  the 
outset  understand  what  we  mean  by  democracy. 

Democracy  in  the  modern  world  and  in  the  best 
minds  is  not,  first  of  all,  so  much  a  system  or  form 
of  governing  as  a  feeling,  a  sentiment.  It  is  a  sense 
of  love  for  the  people,  of  trust  in  them,  the  desire 

119 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

to  be  united  with  their  fortunes,  the  passion  to  serve 
them.  The  historical  Jesus  stands  before  us  as,  in 
this  sense,  the  first  true  democrat.  Born  amidst  the 
people,  living  His  life  amongst  them,  we  see  in  Him 
the  man  of  supreme  capacity  standing  before  the 
multitude,  not  for  what  He  can  get  out  of  them,  but 
for  what  He  can  impart  to  them.  In  face  of  the 
modern  exploiter — the  politician  who  angles  for  votes* 
the  capitalist  who  creates  beef  trusts — all  intent  on 
using  the  people  for  their  personal  profit,  the  Democrat 
of  Galilee  offers  us  here  a  marvellous  spectacle,  whose 
significance  we  are  only  now  beginning  to  appreciate. 
It  is  the  eternal  type  of  the  democratic  spirit  as  it  is 
to  work  in  the  social  evolution  that  is  before  us. 

It  means,  we  say,  first  and  foremost  a  love  of  and 
belief  in  the  people,  the  people  as  they  are  and  for 
what  they  are.  It  holds  humanity  as  a  lovable  and 
a  holy  thing.  Lamennais,  in  a  magnificent  passage 
of  the  "  Paroles  d'un  Croyant,"  speaks  of  the  people 
as  in  itself  the  Christ  of  the  ages,  enduring  patiently 
its  long  martyrdom,  uplifted  on  its  cross  of  suffering, 
working  out  a  world  redemption.  And  there  is  truth 
in  that.  We  do  not  begin  to  understand  our  fellow 
until  we  see  a  divine  in  him,  a  divine  that  is  suffering. 
We  talk  of  tumults  and  massacres,  but  have  we  ever 
properly  considered  the  patience  of  the  people  ?  They 
have  done  everything  for  us  and  received  so  little 
from  us !  It  is  not  the  gorgeously  attired,  but  the  man 
in  corduroy  who  is  the  maker  of  the  nation.  The 
palace  of  the  aristocrat  was  not  made  by  the  aristocrat ; 
no,  nor  the  road  he  walks  on,  nor  the  rail  he  travels 
by,  nor  the  yacht  in  which  he  sails  the  seas.     It  was 

120 


The   Ideal  in  Democracy 

the  horny  hand,  the  dweller  in  a  hovel,  the  receiver 
of  a  pittance,  that  did  these  things.  It  was  his 
ancestors  in  tens  of  thousands  who  laid  down  their 
lives  on  bloody  fields  to  win  the  empire,  to  guard  its 
liberties. 

So  patient,  we  say.  The  colliers  could  starve  us 
out  in  six  weeks,  but  instead  they  go  down  day  by 
day  into  the  blackness  of  the  pit,  facing  explosions 
and  maimings  and  deaths  to  work  for  us.  And 
what  politeness  there  is  amongst  them,  what  instant 
recognition  of  worth  and  goodness  !  The  Salvation 
Army  lass  will  visit  the  roughest  quarters  and  be 
sure  of  her  reception.  Travel  in  the  workman's 
train  and  note  the  homely,  modest  courtesy  with 
which  your  roughly  clad  companions  will  treat  you. 
And  what  humour  there  is,  and  good  sense  !  What 
Hazlitt  said  of  his  day  will  hold  now  :  "  You  will 
hear  more  good  things  on  the  outside  of  a  stage  coach 
from  London  to  Oxford  than  if  you  were  to  pass  a 
twelvemonth  with  the  undergraduates  or  heads  of 
colleges  of  the  famous  university." 

It  is,  we  say,  to  begin  with,  the  sense  and  appre- 
ciation of  all  this,  the  desire  to  be  identified  with 
the  people  in  their  sorrows  and  difficulties,  to  help 
in  making  for  them  a  better  world,  that  constitutes 
the  democratic  spirit.  It  may  be  named,  indeed, 
the  Christian  spirit,  according  to  that  excellent  defi- 
nition of  it  which  Goethe  gives  in  "Wilhelm  Meister," 
where,  speaking  of  '*  the  three  reverences,"  he  calls 
Christianity  the  religion  of  the  third  reverence  ; 
the  reverence,  that  is,  for  what  is  beneath  us,  for 
the  humble,  the  lowly,  the  suffering.     The  rich,  the 

121 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

titled,  the  privileged,  have  won  all  their  rights  and 
more  than  their  rights.  The  democratic,  the  Chris- 
tian spirit  recognises  that  the  battle  for  rights  is 
now  a  battle  for  the  poor,  the  unprivileged,  who  are 
at  present  shut  out  from  them. 

Thus   far   of   democracy   as   a   sentiment.     But   it 
has  also  a  relation  to  government  which  it  is  time 
now  to  consider.     We  want  to  know  first  of  all  what 
we    mean    by    government.     There    are    here    some 
radical    confusions    which    need    to    be    cleared    up. 
Through   the   long   ages   of  militarism   and  violence 
the  idea  of  government  has  been  so  exclusively  con- 
nected with  force  and  compulsion    that  we  are  apt 
to  think  of  it  as  belonging  exclusively  to  this  sphere. 
But  the  democratic  spirit  has  a  quite  different  out- 
look from  that.     It  is  excellently  expressed  in  Locke's 
view  of  authority.     Locke  holds  that  its    only  jus- 
tification lies  in  its  actual  serviceableness.     Only  that, 
he  says,  which  has  justified  itself  to  the  reason  and 
has  won  man's  free  assent  can  exercise  an  inward 
control.     We  here  begin  to  see  how  far  wider  is  the 
sphere  of  government  than  that  of  mere  command. 
The   true   governing   is   serving.     The   guide   in   the 
Swiss  mountains  governs  his  party  by  showing  them 
the  way.     They  follow  him  because  he  knows.     Com- 
pare the  relation  here  with  that  of  a  chained  slave- 
gang  urged  along  the  road  by  the  whips  of  the  drivers ! 
Both  bodies  are  under  government,  but  how  different 
a   sort    of   government  !     There   is   government   also 
by  persuasion  ;    as  when  an  orator  by  the  arguments 
he  offers,  by  the  force  of  his  pleading,  brings  over 
the  audience  to  his  views.     And  in  a  wider  sense  a 

122 


The   Ideal   in   Democracy 

man  of  genius  may  be  said  to  govern  a  generation 
by  showering  upon  it  his  gifts.  We  call  him  an 
"  authority  "  in  his  department,  and  the  word  here 
is  well  used.     His  authority  is  that  of  high  service. 

Recognising  all  this,  the  democratic  idea  is  to 
substitute  in  an  ever-increasing  degree  the  govern- 
ment of  the  guide  for  that  of  the  slave-driver.  Its 
ultimate  aim  is  to  teach  each  man  to  govern  himself ; 
to  establish  in  his  own  soul  the  reign  of  reason  and 
conscience  in  place  of  that  of  violence  and  passion. 
In  proportion  as  that  goes  on  amongst  a  people,  the 
rule  of  brute  force,  of  the  army,  the  magistrate,  and 
the  gibbet  will  fade  into  the  rear,  until  it  finally  dis- 
appears. Less  and  less  will  it  be  an  affair  of  ordering 
and  obeying  ;  more  and  more  an  affair  of  helping 
and  being  helped.  The  community's  wisdom  will 
be  at  the  service  of  the  less  wise.  The  mind  of  genius 
will  link  itself  to  the  mind  of  the  dull  and  the  unin- 
formed, to  draw  them  forward  towards  its  own  level. 

Enough  has  here  been  said  to  make  clear  what, 
in  our  view,  is  the  spirit  and  the  future  course  of 
democracy.  Clearly  it  is  not  the  government  of 
ignorance  or  of  passion,  the  dominance  of  the  noble 
by  the  ignoble.  On  the  contrary,  it  will  utilise  to 
a  degree  never  before  reached  the  wisdom  of  the 
wisest  in  the  service  of  all.  It  is  by  slow  degrees 
that  this  idea  is  coming  in  as  a  working,  a  dominating 
force.  We  have  seen  ages  in  which  the  world's  ability, 
its  cleverness,  has  been  used  for  the  self-aggrandise- 
ment of  its  possessors  rather  than  for  the  general 
well-being;  when  men,  with  some  grand  exceptions, 
cared  less  to  yoke  themselves  to  the  common  load 

123 


Life  and   the  Ideal 

than  to  push  their  solitary  way  to  the  heights.  Thus 
have  we  the  pitiful  story  of  the  separation  of  the 
strong  from  the  weak  ;  of  the  growing  splendour  on 
one  side  and  the  growing  misery  on  the  other  ;  of  the 
powerful  using  the  weak  as  stepping-stones  upwards, 
their  weight,  meanwhile,  pressing  the  recumbent  figures 
underneath  further  into  the  mud.  Montesquieu 
describes  this  process  as  it  went  on  in  France  :  **  The 
clergy,  the  prince,  the  towns,  the  great  people,  certain 
leading  citizens,  have  insensibly  become  proprietors 
of  the  whole  country.  It  is  uncultivated,  and  one 
ought  to  distribute  the  lands  amongst  those  who 
have  none,  and  to  procure  them  means  of  clearing 
and  cultivating  it." 

As  the  moral  evolution  goes  on  we  shall  more  and 
more  clearly  see  that  the  elevation  of  one  class  at 
the  expense  of  others  is  a  barbarism,  an  intolerable 
condition  ;  that  we  have  no  right  to  happiness  apart 
from  the  happiness  of  others  ;  that  the  true  mental 
frame  is  to  be,  as  Pope's  lines  have  it — 

Never  elated  while  one  man's  oppressed 
Never  dejected  while  another 'g  blessed. 

Democracy  conceives  a  state  in  which  the  happiness 
of  each  individual  will  be  increased  a  thousandfold 
by  the  conscious  participation  of  each  in  the  happiness 
of  all.  It  conceives  society  as  an  organism  in  which 
one  part  cannot  call  itself  healthy  while  another 
part  is  diseased.  To  quote  the  great  Frenchman 
once  more  :  ^*  The  alms  you  give  to  a  naked  man 
in  the  street  do  not  fill  up  the  obligations  of  the  State, 
which  owes  to  all  its  citizens  an  assured  subsistence, 
and  a  life  not  contrary  to  health." 

124 


The  Ideal  in  Democracy 

We  have  spoken  of  the  relation  of  democracy  to 
religion,  and  now,  in  closing,  we  must  return  to  that. 
There  is,  for  one  thing,  the  bearing  of  democracy  on 
church  government.  If  Jesus  was  the  true  democrat, 
and  if  Christianity  consists  in  carrying  on  His  spirit 
and  teaching,  it  follows  that  its  own  government 
and  internal  regulations  should  exemplify  in  the 
best  form  the  democratic  idea.  How  far  in  practice 
the  Church  has  departed  from  it,  history  offers  the  sad 
and  shameful  record.  The  condemnation  of  splendid 
hierarchies,  of  the  separation  of  the  clergy  from  the  laity, 
of  theological  and  spiritual  despotisms  of  all  kinds, 
lies  most  in  this,  that  they  are  one  and  all  a  betrayal 
of  democracy.  The  Church  of  the  past  has  separated 
men,  instead  of  bringing  them  together  ;  has  created 
castes,  instead  of  abolishing  them  ;  worst  of  all,  it 
has  governed  by  force  instead  of  by  reason  and 
persuasion.  The  French  saying,  un  /vcqite  ne  discute  pas  ; 
il  frappe,  has  been  its  characteristic  method.  Demo- 
cracy demands  above  all  things  mental  freedom,  and 
this  the  Church  has  been  the  first  to  deny.  If  a  man 
is  to  govern  himself  he  must  think  for  himself.  Old 
Hesiod,  at  the  dawn  of  Greek  literature,  saw  this 
clearly.  Says  he  :  "  The  man  who  thinks  for  himself 
aright  is  the  best  of  all ;  he  who  follows  another's 
rightful  thought  is  also  good ;  but  he  who  neither  thinks 
aright,  nor  listens  to  another's  thought,  that  man  is 
nothing  worth."  If  we  are  to  have  a  true  democracy  w^e 
must  have  a  true  Christianity,  a  religious  community 
whose  notes  are  fellowship,  humility,  service  and 
liberty. 

And  the  question  here  of  the  Church,  of  a  truly 

125 


Life   and   the   Ideal 

founded  and  regulated  religious  community,  is  so 
important  because  we  shall  never  get  a  true  democracy 
apart  from  a  true  religion.  For  democracy,  as  we  have 
seen,  points  in  the  last  result  to  self-government. 
Without  that  it  would  be  chaos,  like  the  starry  worlds 
without  gravitation.  And  there  is  no  self-government 
without  an  inner,  a  spiritual  power.  Your  self -governed 
State,  to  be  workable,  requires  a  community  of  good 
men,  and  there  is  no  political  recipe  for  making  men 
good.  The  work  here  must  begin  in  a  man's  soul,  in 
a  reinforcement  of  the  good  that  is  in  him  by  all  the 
good  that  is  outside  him.  It  is  here  that  all  material- 
istic, godless  Socialisms  break  down.  Before  you 
can  construct  your  world,  you  must  have  the 
right  material,  and  know  where  to  get  it.  Man 
must  be  right  with  God  before  he  can  be  right  with 
his  fellow. 


126 


XIII 

NATURE    AND    THE    POLITICAL    IDEAL 

In  the  political  conflicts  of  the  hour  we  seem  to  need 
a  referee.  We  have  two  sides  vehemently  opposed, 
denying  each  other's  statements,  calling  each  other 
names.  Each  party  believes  that  the  other  is  ruining 
the  country.  All  life  and  progress  will  come  to  an 
end  if  the  wrong  side  wins.  And  it  is  well  that  we 
should  be  in  earnest  over  these  matters,  for  the  effect 
on  human  welfare  of  good  or  bad  politics  can  hardly 
be  exaggerated.  But  in  deciding  about  them  we  are, 
we  say,  in  some  need  of  an  umpire.  And  fortunately 
for  us  there  is  one.  There  is  a  court  of  appeal  outside, 
whose  decisions  are  slow  in  coming,  but  which,  when 
they  do  appear,  turn  out  to  be  infallibly  accurate. 
That  court,  that  umpire,  is  Nature.  She  is,  indeed, 
much  more  than  umpire.  She  is  herself  the  great 
political  worker,  engaged,  not  for  this  party  or  that, 
but  for  both  sides  ;  at  once  the  foundation  and  the 
effective  agent  of  the  poHtics  of  humanity.  It  seems 
worth  while,  just  now,  to  study  some  of  her  methods. 
The  study  is  good  because,  to  begin  with,  it  has  so 
calming,  so  cheering  an  effect.  One's  first  impulse, 
indeed,  is  to  laugh  a  little.  For  in  the  midst  of  our 
conflicts  Nature  shows  herself  first  of  all  as  a  humourist. 
She  smiles  in  her  sleeve  at   our  promises,  our  pro- 

127 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

phecies.  She  will  put  them  all  to  the  test.  She  has  a 
word  to  the  victors  and  the  vanquished.  "Good 
people,"  we  hear  her  saying,  "do  not  make  too  much 
of  your  triumphs  or  your  defeats.  You  have  not  shut 
up  all  life  in  the  ballot-box.  Most  of  it,  and  the  best 
of  it,  lies  outside.  When  all  you  have  done  is  done, 
your  world,  your  island,  will  stand  just  where  they 
did.  The  sun  will  rise  to-morrow  on  both  of  you. 
Streams  will  flow,  clouds  will  sail  in  the  sky,  spring 
and  summer  will  come,  bringing  with  them  the  clothing 
of  the  trees,  the  song  of  the  birds,  the  joy  of  the 
children,  all  the  beauty  and  glory  of  the  landscape. 
They  will  know  nothing  of  your  quarrels.  To  Tory 
and  Liberal  they  will  offer  themselves  with  entire  im- 
partiality. They  have  so  much  kindlier  a  feeling 
for  you  than  you  appear  to  have  for  each  other." 

Our  political  parties,  as  at  present  constituted, 
range  themselves  as  Conservatives  and  Progressives. 
Nature  appears  to  belong  to  both.  She  is  in  a  sense 
conservative.  There  are  aspects  of  her  that  never 
change.  And  well  for  us  that  it  is  so.  But  her 
conservatism  is  a  fidelity  ;  it  is  that  of  a  friend  who 
conserves  the  faithfulness  of  his  friendship.  It  is  an 
affirmation  that  we  may  rely  upon  her.  When  you  once 
know  the  qualities  of  fire,  of  water,  of  oak,  or  of  granite, 
you  may  trust  them.  They  will  be  the  same  to- 
morrow as  yesterday.  There  is  never  a  rebellion  in 
atoms;  there  is  no  change  in  the  fact  that  two  and 
two  make  four.  Ours  is  a  world  we  can  live  in  because 
we  are  confident  that  no  bribery  or  intimidation 
will  induce  oxygen  to  alter  its  action,  or  cause  water 
to  run  uphill.    And  so  far  as  conservatism  stands  for 

128 


Nature  and  the  Political   Ideal 

law  and  order,  you  may  count  Nature  in  on  that  side 
also.  She  will  have  no  tampering  with  the  established 
constitution.  Let  anyone  play  tricks  with  her  law 
of  gravitation  and  he  will  get  the  worst  of  it.  She  has 
a  rough  way  of  dealing  with  rebels  and  with  fools. 
But  it  is  precisely  this  respect  for  law  and  her  con- 
stitution that,  on  the  other  hand,  makes  Nature  the 
most  ardent  of  progressives.  For  her  law  is  essentially 
one  of  progress.  Her  record  here  is  unmistakable. 
In  times  of  apparent  standstill  and  reaction,  nothing 
is  so  cheering  as  to  take  a  survey  of  the  past.  Our 
own  personal  career  is  so  brief  that  we  grow  im- 
patient if  w^e  cannot  see  things  move.  Nature  is  long- 
lived  and  takes  her  time.  JEons  before  man  appeared 
she  was  at  this  business,  pushing  things  forward. 
She  never  stops  her  working,  and  the  direction  is 
always  upward.  Her  way  of  it  is  different  from  ours ; 
so  much  quieter,  so  much  more  effective.  While  we 
are  shouting  our  war-cries  she  is  silently  preparing  her 
soil,  dropping  in  her  seed,  watching  over  her  new 
growths.  She  brings  now  and  then  a  great  man  into 
the  world,  the  performance  of  whose  single  brain 
does  more  for  human  advancement  than  a  dozen  poli- 
tical programmes.  What  Parliamentary  Bill  equalled 
in  importance  for  England  and  the  world's  welfare 
the  idea  that  came  into  the  head  of  James  Watt  as  he 
w^atched  the  steam  lifting  the  lid  of  his  tea-kettle, 
or  that  other  idea  which  made  Geordie  Stephenson 
the  inventor  of  the  locomotive  ?  **  One  new  idea  such 
as  Bessemer's  chief  invention,"  says  Professor  Marshall, 
**  adds  as  much  to  England's  productive  power  as  the 
labours  of  a  hundred  thousand  men."     In  this  work 

129  I 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

Nature  quietly  ignores  our  party  systems.  In  bestowing 
the  mental  gifts  by  which  peoples  are  enriched  she  has 
no  political  preferences.  Her  poets,  her  inventors, 
her  mighty  human  movers  in  all  departments,  spring 
up  in  this  quarter  or  that,  may  be  themselves  of  this 
political  complexion  or  that,  but  their  gifts  will  be  at 
the  common  service.  Stephenson's  locomotive  pulls 
Tories  and  Radicals  at  the  same  pace  and  for  the 
same  cost.  Scott  was  a  Conservative,  and  Dickens 
a  Liberal,  but  "Old  Mortality"  and  "Pickwick"  are 
the  possession  of  us  all. 

There  is  this  further  about  Nature  as  a  progressive. 
She  secures  the  victories  she  has  won.  In  our  political 
contests,  now  this  side  loses,  now  that,  but  humanity 
is  always  winning.  No  hostile  coalition,  no  snatch  vote 
in  a  midnight  division,  will  ever  rob  us  of  the  world's 
literature,  of  the  arts  that  have  developed,  of  the 
inventions  which  lift  humanity  to  ever  higher  powers. 
You  cannot  vote  down  the  printing-press,  nor  the 
discovery  of  electricity,  nor  the  new-found  energies  of 
radium.  "  Not  even  the  gods  can  rob  us  of  our  past," 
says  the  Latin  poet.  It  stands  there,  with  all  its 
vast  record  of  struggle  upward,  with  all  its  solid 
results,  impregnable  to  assault,  at  once  the  starting- 
point  and  the  prophecy  of  all  else  that  is  to  be 
achieved. 

Why,  indeed,  should  we  ever  be  afraid  of  reaction  ? 
The  nature  of  things  is  essentially  progressive.  That 
law,  writ  large  on  the  world  outside,  is  stamped  also 
in  visible  letters  on  the  human  constitution.  The 
brain  of  man  is  always  thinking,  and  it  thinks  according 
to  the  laws  of  thought.    And  these  laws  mean  move- 

130 


Nature  and  the   Political   Ideal 

ment.  They  mean  that  when  you  have  reached  a 
certain  stage,  the  next  stage  opens  and  draws  you 
forward  to  it.  When  the  child  has  learned  its  letters, 
it  learns  next  to  read.  When  you  have  mastered 
arithmetic,  you  are  ready  for  algebra.  What  is  true 
of  the  child  is  true  of  the  race.  It  is  a  being  that  is 
ever  growing  and  ever  learning.  Whatever  is  doing  in 
Parliament,  the  world  outside  is  always  at  school, 
picking  up  fresh  secrets,  gaining  new  masteries. 

It  is  because  of  this  inner  law  of  the  mind  that  all 
the  cliques  of  self-interest,  all  the  combinations  of 
tyranny,  while  they  may  delay,  can  never  stop  the 
progress  of  knowledge  and  of  liberty.  You  may,  as 
Abraham  Lincoln  said,  "fool  all  the  people  some  of 
the  time,  and  some  of  the  people  all  the  time,  but  you 
cannot  fool  all  the  people  all  the  time."  Nature  has  a 
way  of  bringing  everything  to  the  test.  If  a  political 
party  takes  up  with  a  false  economic  theory,  it  may 
flourish  for  a  time  on  fancy  pictures  and  on  alluring 
promises.  But  the  fact  will  out  in  the  long  run.  If 
Nature  cannot  hammer  the  truth  into  people's  heads, 
she  will  hammer  it  into  their  stomachs.  When  a 
politician  informs  the  world  that  a  tax  on  corn  will 
make  bread  cheaper,  he  may  win  votes  by  the  state- 
ment, but  he  will  not  change  economic  law.  And 
that  law,  be  sure,  will  vindicate  itself  in  its  own  time. 
It  carries  a  whip  in  its  hand  for  falsehood  and  folly. 
When  people  will  not  listen  to  reason,  Nature,  for 
change,  will  give  them  a  dose  of  hunger.  Jowett  of 
Balliol  estimates  that  the  annual  loss  to  the  Conti- 
nental nations  from  Protection  amounts  to  a  thousand 
millions  sterling.     Gustave  le  Bon,  the  eminent  French 

131 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

scientist,  observes  that  "to  recognise  that  Protection 
ruins  the  people  who  accept  it,  it  requires  at  least 
twenty  years  of  disastrous  experiences."  In  the  end, 
people  the  world  over  will  come  to  sound  views  on 
these  subjects.  Nature  will  assure  that  by  the 
experiences  through  which  she  will  pass  them.  She 
is  a  hard  teacher,  but  she  will  drive  in  her  lesson 
at  last. 

Nature  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  political  or 
any  other  combinations,  except  in  so  far  as  they  work 
out  her  own  laws.  She  revenges  herself  when  they 
attempt  to  traverse  them.  In  a  speech  which  Thucy- 
dides  reports,  Demosthenes  endeavours  to  make  this 
plain  to  the  Athenian  people.  Says  he :  "  It  is 
impossible,  Athenians,  to  found  a  lasting  power  on 
injustice,  perjury  and  trickery.  For  as  in  structures 
of  every  kind  the  lower  parts  should  have  the  greater 
stability,  so  the  grounds  and  principles  of  great  enter- 
prises should  be  justice  and  truth." 

Observe  how  this  has  worked  itself  out  in  history. 
To  take  one  branch  of  it.  A  time  came  when  in 
Western  religion  ecclesiastical  politics  became  a 
politics  of  repression.  It  was  honestly  believed  by 
the  authorities  that  religious  safety  lay  in  popular 
ignorance;  that  research,  beyond  certain  limits,  was 
an  enemy  to  the  soul.  And  so  the  Church  branded 
science  as  heresy,  and  burned  its  professors  where  it 
had  the  power.  In  our  time  the  stake  has  ceased 
to  be  a  usable  weapon,  but  the  policy,  though  by 
milder  means,  is  still  pursued.  To-day  orthodox 
Catholicism  has  organised  its  immense  forces  for  the 
suppression  of  facts.     It  has  silenced  eloquent  voices, 

132 


Nature  and  the  Political   Ideal 

driven  from  its  fold  teachers  who  wanted  the  sheer 
truth.  And  Protestantism  here  and  there  has  followed 
a  similar  policy.  But  Nature  laughs  at  these  methods, 
wherever  and  by  whomsoever  followed.  You  cannot 
by  ordinances  shut  people's  eyes  or  stop  their  brain 
from  its  normal  exercise.  And  so,  inside  and  outside 
the  Church,  the  one  inevitable  process  goes  on.  The 
questions  of  the  Bible,  of  inspiration,  of  spiritual 
authority,  of  Christianity  in  its  relation  to  other 
religions  and  to  the  ultimate  fact  of  things,  assume 
new  forms  and  proportions.  Men  think  about  them 
in  new  ways.  You  could  to-day  no  more  reproduce 
the  old  mediaevalism  in  religious  thought  than  you 
could  roll  back  the  Amazon  to  its  source  or  stop  the 
spring  sap  from  rising  in  the  trees. 

With  political  or  social  theories  which  are  con- 
trary to  sound  economics  or  good  morals.  Nature 
has  her  own  way  of  dealing.  She  allows  them  rope 
enough  wherewith  to  hang  themselves.  It  was  thus 
she  dealt  with  American  slavery.  It  came  of  itself  to 
an  impasse;  then  found  a  bloody  solution.  So  it  was 
in  France  with  feudalism.  The  idea  of  the  haute 
noblesse  that  the  country  belonged  solely  to  them, 
as  the  instrument  of  their  pleasure ;  that  the  outside 
twenty-five  millions  had  no  part  or  share  in  it  except 
that  of  toiling  serfs,  was  not  Nature's  idea.  It  did  not 
fit  in  with  her  scheme,  and  had  also  accordingly  to 
go  out  in  flame  and  blood.  If  history  has  taught  us 
anything,  it  has  taught  us  this,  that  any  theory  which 
proposes  the  happiness  of  a  few  at  the  expense  of 
the  misery  of  the  many  is  one  through  which  Nature 
draws   her  pencil.     She  wills  the  welfare  of  all  her 

133 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

children,  and  will  allow  us  no  peace  and  no  prosperity 
till  our  ideas  and  actions  in  these  matters  square  with 
her  own. 

We  may  now  sum  up  some  of  the  results  at  which 
we  have  arrived.  In  our  political  quarrels  we  need  an 
arbiter,  and  we  find  there  is  one.  Behind  our  factions 
lies  Nature,  jealous  of  facts,  and  destructive  of  theories 
which  are  contrary  to  facts.  Behind  them  also  is  the 
human  nature  which  is  common  to  us  all,  and  which  is 
governed  by  laws  that  are  older  than  our  parties. 
These  laws  work  in  one  way.  Nature  is  a  conservative 
in  the  sense  of  proceeding  ever  on  the  same  principles, 
of  being  faithful  to  her  qualities.  By  her  time- 
process  she  puts  all  our  programmes  and  promises  to 
the  proof.  Whatever  our  political  combinations  are 
doing,  she  works  on  towards  progress  in  ways  which 
politics  cannot  touch.  By  the  laws  she  has  imprinted 
on  the  human  mind  she  exposes  falsehood,  revenges 
injustice,  and  vanquishes  ignorance  by  an  ever- 
widening  knowledge. 

All  this  points  to  one  conclusion.  Behind  the  Nature 
which  thus  exhibits  itself  to  us  there  lies  a  moral 
Nature,  a  Will  which  seeks  to  express  itself  through 
man,  and  to  found  in  this  world  a  kingdom  of  righteous- 
ness and  blessedness.  "  We  are  born  into  a  kingdom," 
says  one  of  the  Stoics,  "where  to  obey  is  liberty." 
Cicero  is  possessed  with  this  feeling  when  in  the 
De  Officiis  he  says :  "  Nothing  is  so  contrary  to 
Nature  as  moral  turpitude  ;  for  Nature  desires  the 
upright,  the  suitable  and  the  consistent,  and  rejects 
the  reverse." 

The  impression  here  created  in  the  best  minds  of 

134 


Nature  and  the   Political  Ideal 

antiquity  is  confirmed  by  the  whole  force  of  that  other 
movement  which  constitutes  the  religious  life  of  man. 
The  evolution  which  has  given  us  political  constitu- 
tions, which  has  secured  to  us  the  triumphs  of  science 
and  of  art,  has,  in  another  direction,  produced 
prophets  and  apostles,  Christ  and  the  saints.  We 
reach  here  that  spiritual  order  which  human  history 
discloses.  Into  this  realm  have  come  experiences, 
communications,  moral  pressures  and  uplif  tings, 
glimpses  of  things  unutterable,  that  point  all  one  way. 
They  are  the  outcome  of  a  spiritual  energy,  as  manifest 
as  gravitation,  a  fountain  of  inner  power  that  is 
unfailing,  inexhaustible.  We  reach  here  a  name  nearer 
and  dearer  than  that  of  Nature,  which  the  spirit 
knows  as  God.  Better  than  the  politics  of  party  are 
the  politics  of  the  soul.  To  turn  to  them  is  for  weary 
spirits  the  most  refreshing  of  tonics.  We  fight  our 
world  battles  with  a  new  energy  when  we  know 
ourselves  as  of  this  better  party,  of  this  higher 
citizenship.  For  here  the  victory  is  certain  and  the 
reward  is  sure. 


135 


XIV 
OF    HUMAN    GOODNESS 

We  hear  a  good  deal  of  man's  vanity,  but  have  we 
sufficiently  considered  his  enormous  modesty  ?  Surely 
one  might  search  the  spheres  in  vain  to  find  a  creature 
so  given  to  self-disparagement.  In  his  religion  man 
has  given  himself  the  worst  of  characters.  A  psalmist 
declares  there  is  "  none  good ;  no,  not  one."  A 
prophet  proclaims  human  righteousness  to  be  "filthy 
rags."  We  know  the  terrific  verdict  which  Augustine 
and  his  followers,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  have 
passed  on  the  race.  In  this  view  man's  seeming 
virtues  are  only  splendida  vitia.  That  judgment  is 
reflected  in  the  Article  of  the  Church  of  England  which 
declares  of  "works  done  before  the  grace  of  Christ 
.  .  .  no  doubt  but  that  they  have  the  nature  of 
sin." 

Literature,  in  some  at  least  of  its  phases,  has  been 
hardly  less  severe.  There  have  been  times  when  the 
general  consciousness  has  been  overwhelmed  by  the 
sense  of  human  wickedness.  Vanini,  speaking  of  his 
time,  says  the  only  way  of  accounting  for  man's  doings 
is  to  suppose  that  the  race,  for  its  sins,  has  been 
possessed  by  demons.    At  the  beginning  of  history  we 

136 


of  Human  Goodness 

have  the  pessimistic  note.  Empedocles,  in  one  of  his 
fragments,  affirms  that  human  birth  is  one  of  a  series 
of  transmigrations  which  are  the  punishment  of  some 
original  sin.  He  himself,  he  adds,  "  is  a  wanderer 
and  banished  from  heaven."  What  a  rank  pessimism 
we  have  in  Theognis  !  "  Best  of  all,"  says  he,  "for 
the  creature  of  earth  were  not  to  be  born,  nor  see  the 
sun's  rays.  But  when  born  it  is  best  most  quickly  to 
pass  the  gates  of  Hades  and  to  lie  low  with  the  mould 
heaped  over  one."  We  know  how,  to-day,  Schopen- 
hauer, in  almost  identical  phrase,  has  endorsed  that 
view.  Literature,  age  after  age,  has  veered  between 
tragedy  and  satire,  the  one  occupied  with  man's 
crimes,  the  other  with  his  follies,  his  absurdities. 
For  both  history  has,  it  must  be  confessed,  furnished 
abundant  material.  The  indictment  of  satire  has 
been,  perhaps,  the  worse  of  the  two.  From  Aristo- 
phanes and  Lucian  to  Moli^re  and  Swift  it  is  ever  the 
same  story,  the  story  of  frailties,  of  hypocrisies,  of 
bottomless  absurdities.  Man,  in  every  age,  has  been 
pitiless  to  himself. 

But  is  all  this  a  true  picture  ?  Assuredly  there  is 
truth  in  it,  but  what  we  want  here  to  say  is  that  it  is 
not  the  whole  truth,  nor  even  the  greater  part  of  it. 
For  what  is  certain  is  that  we  should  never  have  heard 
of  man's  badness  had  it  not  been  for  his  goodness. 
It  is  simply  because  he  has  risen  so  high  that  he  has 
written  himself  down  so  low.  In  the  dark  you  see 
nothing.  Had  humanity  been  all  dark,  there  had  been 
no  perception  of  the  fact.  It  is  the  shining  light  in  him 
that  has  created  this  moral  stir.  Is  it  not  wonderful 
that  in  all  the  diatribes,  theologic  and  other,  against 

^37 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

human  nature  it  is  always  man  himself  who  is  the  judge  ? 
When  he  speaks  of  God's  judgment  of  him,  it  is  always 
his  own  idea  of  what  is  God's  judgment.  It  is  his  own 
voice  that  denounces  himself  as  criminal  and  unworthy. 
That,  surely,  is  the  strangest  spectacle  this  planet 
offers.  The  tiger  slays  its  victim  and  licks  its 
paws  contentedly  afterwards.  The  crocodile  appears 
to  be  entirely  satisfied  with  his  crocodilehood. 
There  are  no  treatises  on  original  sin  amongst  polar 
bears.  It  is  man  only  who  proclaims  himself  vile, 
who  does  penance,  who  promises  himself  hell  and 
damnation. 

It  is,  we  say,  a  strange  spectacle,  and  the  strangest 
part  of  it  is  that  all  the  while,  in  his  ordinary  affairs, 
man  goes  everywhere  on  the  supposition  that  he  is 
essentially  good.  The  proof  of  this  is  that  people 
instinctively  trust  each  other.  Modern  commerce, 
to  take  the  first  example  to  hand,  is  a  huge  system 
of  cosmopolitan  trust.  Your  ordinary  investing 
Englishman  has  never  seen  China  or  Japan.  He  knows 
the  people  there  are  of  alien  faith  from  his  own,  and 
have  to  him  strange  and  perhaps  repulsive  habits. 
But  he  trusts  his  money  to  China  and  Japan.  Their 
stocks  are  quoted  at  a  high  figure.  He  believes  in  their 
promise  to  pay.  The  entire  order  of  daily  living 
supposes  the  human  virtues.  The  manufacturer  builds 
his  mill,  believing  in  the  industry  and  capacity  of  his 
workpeople.  We  establish  schools,  feeling  sure  of  the 
fidelity  of  teachers,  of  the  amenity  to  discipline  of 
the  children,  of  their  receptiveness  to  learning.  We 
develop  vast  charities,  confident  in  the  sympathy 
and  benevolence  of  the  public.     Despite  original  sin 

138 


of  Human  Goodness 

and  universal  depravity,  man  marries  and  brings 
up  his  famity,  finding  his  wife  lovable  and  his 
children  adorable.  The  society  of  his  fellows  is 
his  greatest  delight,  the  loss  of  it  the  greatest  of  all 
losses. 

And  religion,  which  in  its  articles  and  creeds  has 
been  the  strongest  proclaimer  of  human  badness,  is 
actually  the  foremost  witness  for  the  opposite.  The 
appeal  of  the  Christian  Gospel  is  the  most  daring 
of  all  optimisms.  To  address  that  appeal  to  a  race 
essentially  bad  would  be  indeed  the  climax  of 
absurdity.  It  supposes  rather  an  almost  impossible 
goodness  in  a  man,  a  goodness  beyond  himself.  And 
the  enormous  reception  that  Gospel  has  witnessed  is 
the  justification  of  its  optimism.  Jesus,  as  the  incar- 
nation of  goodness,  has  made  the  deepest  impression 
of  any  personality  that  has  appeared.  Could  anyone 
have  made  such  an  impression  by  an  appeal  to 
badness  ?  The  modern  missionary,  in  presenting  his 
Gospel  to  outside  races,  expects  from  these  people 
the  same  response,  the  same  interior  welcome.  He 
expects  that  the  goodness  in  the  message  will  be 
embraced  by  the  goodness  in  the  man. 

He  is  right  in  that  supposition.  Were  he  mistaken, 
how  futile  his  mission !  There  is  another  thing  the 
modern  missionary  is  learning,  and  that  is  that  the 
religions  he  comes  amongst,  and  which  he  seeks  to 
supplant,  are  in  their  way  endeavours  after  goodness. 
Brahminism,  Buddhism,  Confucianism,  Taoism, 
Mohammedanism,  possess  what  to  us  are  alien  and 
sometimes  revolting  features,  but  the  core  of  them 
is  everywhere  a  morality,  their  atmosphere  a  sense  of 

139 


Life  and   the  Ideal 

a  higher  nature  in  man.  Let  anyone  read  the  Tri 
Pitakas,  or  the  "  Eightfold  Path  "  of  the  Buddhists,  or 
the  Brahmanic  Vedanta,  or  the  sayings  of  Confucius 
and  of  Lao  Tse:  everywhere  it  is  the  same  yearning 
for  the  highest,  for  the  true  good.  "  What  is  religion  ?" 
says  Asoka,  the  Buddhist  king.  "  Religion  is  the  least 
possible  evil,  much  good,  piety,  charity,  veracity,  and 
also  purity  of  life."  In  all  ages,  in  all  races,  the  same 
power  is  seen  at  work,  the  same  movement  is  discernible, 
not  with  equal  force,  not  reaching  to  the  same  heights, 
but  always  travelling  in  the  same  direction,  evolving 
towards  the  same  end. 

You  take  man  at  his  worst  and  wildest,  but  some- 
how— how,  is  often  a  mystery — he  rights  himself. 
The  lawless  mining  community,  which  begins  with 
saloons  and  bowie-knives,  settles  into  an  ordered, 
bechurched  and  beschooled  community.  The  human 
refuse  picked  out  of  the  London  gutters,  taken  into 
proper  surroundings,  turns  out  to  be  excellent  material 
for  citizenship.  Give  the  human  a  chance,  and  its 
good  comes  uppermost.  The  new  discovery — for  it 
is  new — is  making  itself  felt  in  our  law  courts,  in  our 
criminal  procedure.  Under  the  old  depravity  theory 
a  former  generation  thought  only  of  punishing  its 
criminals,  of  hanging  them  in  batches  at  the  Old 
Bailey.  Humanity  was  damnable,  and  therefore 
entirely  hangable.  To-day  we  have  thousands  of 
young  people,  who  in  those  days  would  have  been 
food  for  the  gaol  and  the  gallows,  in  institutions 
officered  by  optimists.  They  judge  by  results.  They 
know  that  80  per  cent,  of  these  social  offscourings 
will  turn  out  well. 

140 


Of  Human  Goodness 

In  this  matter  of  human  badness  history  has  been 
almost  persistently  misleading.  And  that  from  no 
fault  of  the  historian.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  the 
case.  For  what  people  write  about  is  as  a  rule  not 
the  normal,  but  the  abnormal.  The  wholesome  hum- 
drum of  family  life  attracts  nobody's  attention.  It  is 
unwritten,  unread.  The  quiet  street  slumbers  through 
forty  years  of  peaceful  living,  and  no  one  records  the 
fact.  Let  a  murder  be  committed  at  the  corner  house, 
and  it  flashes  at  once  into  note.  It  is  of  this  element 
of  the  uncommon,  of  the  tragic,  that  history  is  so 
largely  made  up.  It  is  the  thousandth  event  that 
counts  here.  The  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  that 
make  up  the  reality  of  life  are  left  out.  And  what 
is  true  of  history  is  true  of  literature.  It  does  not  find 
its  material  in  the  average.  It  looks  for  the  unusual, 
the  tragic.  Do  we  suppose  Greek  domestic  life  was 
on  the  pattern  represented  by  a  Clytemnestra,  an 
Orestes  ?  Was  the  mediaeval  Scottish  wife  patterned 
on  Lady  Macbeth  ?  And  as  with  tragedy  so  with 
comedy.  You  do  not  meet  the  actual  Tartuffe  in 
France, anymore  than  3^ou  do  Pecksniff  or  Mr.  Stiggins 
in  England.  We  are  neither  as  high  nor  as  low  as 
literature  has  made  us.  But  the  balance  is  in  our 
favour. 

But  what,  it  may  be  asked,  is  it  that  we  are  here 
contending  for  ?  Are  we  running  amok  amongst  the 
creeds,  against  the  doctrines  that  proclaim  man's 
fall  and  need  of  saving  ?  Do  we  make  Hght  of  what 
prophets  and  saints  in  all  ages  have  painted  in  such 
dark  colours  ?  Have  the  Messalinas,  the  Borgias, 
the  Marats,  been  badly  treated  by  history,  their  moral 

141 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

peculiarities  made  too  much  of  ?  We  assent  to  none 
of  these  propositions.  Sin  is  as  tremendous  as  religious 
experience  has  ever  felt  it  to  be.  The  story  of  the  Fall 
is  no  mere  chapter  in  Genesis.  It  is  rewritten  on 
every  soul.  And  that  religion  comes  to  man  with  an 
offer  of  dehverance  is  the  best  credential  of  its 
message. 

When  we  talk  of  the  human  goodness,  and  of  our 
behef  in  it,  it  is  not  that  we  ignore  or  minimise  the  other 
side.  What  we  assert  is  that  man's  goodness  is  more 
fundamental  than  his  badness,  has  a  more  real  and 
lasting  significance.  It  is  his  goodness,  we  repeat, 
that  condemns  his  badness.  These  self-indictments, 
these  anguishes  of  tortured  souls,  are  all  forms  of 
man's  eternal  struggle  for  inner  perfection.  Human 
history  at  bottom  is  a  divine  history.  That  is  the  secret 
which  all  the  religions,  all  the  philosophies,  strive  to 
utter.  It  is  the  story  of  a  spiritual,  divine  nature, 
born  in  lowHest  conditions,  incarnate — shall  we 
say  in  a  stable,  rising  step  by  step  towards  its  own 
reaUsation,  strugghng  amid  many  a  fall  with  the 
animalism  which  envelops  it,  but  moving  with  sure 
instinct  towards  its  goal.  The  fall  is  part  of  the 
movement,  as  a  child  stumbles  when  it  learns  to 
walk. 

And  the  goodness  in  man  is  winning,  was  created  to 
win.  As  John  Smyth,  one  of  the  early  English  Baptists, 
nobly  says  :  "  As  no  man  begetteth  his  child  to  the 
gallows,  nor  no  potter  maketh  a  pot  to  break  it,  so  God 
doth  not  predestinate  any  man  to  destruction." 
Tertullian  is  one  of  the  fiercest  of  Christian  theologians, 
and  has  said  some  terrible  things.     Yet  no  one  has 

142 


Of  Human  Goodness 

appealed  more  confidently  to  the  Divine  element  in 
man.  Witness  that  fine  address  of  his  to  the  soul: 
**  I  address  thee,  simple  and  rude,  uncultured  and 
untaught,  such  as  they  have  thee  who  have  thee  only ; 
that  very  thing  pure  and  entire,  of  the  road,  of  the 
street,  of  the  workshop.  I  want  thy  experience;  I 
demand  of  thee  the  things  thou  bringest  with  thee 
into  man,  which  thou  knowest  either  from  thyself 
or  from  thy  Author,  whoever  He  may  be."  The  soul, 
at  its  worst,  is  sure  of  that  other  nature.  Even  a  Faust 
admits  it  :  "  Zwei  Seelen  wohnen  ach  !  in  meiner 
Brust."  Cicero  declares  our  nature  to  be  essentially 
on  the  side  of  good. 

We  want  this  belief  in  human  goodness,  as,  next  to 
our  belief  in  God,  the  fundamental  article  of  our  creed. 
We  need  it  as  the  inspiration  of  all  our  preaching  and 
teaching — the  belief  that  everywhere,  among  young 
and  old,  among  savage  and  civilised,  the  appeal  to  the 
highest  in  man  is  sure  of  its  answer.  We  want  it  as  the 
inspiration  of  noble  politics,  the  belief  which  Gladstone 
translated  into  his  policy  of  "  trusting  the  people." 
It  is  the  foundation  of  all  successful  domestic  Hving. 
You  can  only  get  the  best  of  your  husband,  your 
wife,  by  appealing  to  their  best  and  believing 
in  it. 

And  we  shall  get  the  good  out  of  life  in  proportion  as 
we  believe  in  it.  We  do  not  compliment  God  by  calling 
His  world  evil.  It  is  a  truer  orthodoxy  to  say,  "  God 
must  be  glad  one  loves  His  world  so  much."  To  search 
for  the  good  is  more  efficacious  than  gold-mining. 
And  there  is  no  circumstance  that  environs  you,  no 
event,   however  seeming-gruesome,   but   contains  it. 

143 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

Take  good  into  your  thought,  and  it  will  find  its  fellow 
everywhere.    It  is  a  true  religion  which  says  : 

How  good  is  man's  life,  the  mere  living ; 

How  fit  to   employ 
The  heart  and  the  soul  and  the  senses  for  ever  in  joy ! 

And  which,   in  the  hour  of  conflict  and  failure,    has 
this  for  refrain : 

By  the  pain  throb  triumphantly  winning  intensified  bliss 
And  the  next  world's  reward  and  repose  by  the  struggles  in  this  ! 


144 


XV 

EN    ROUTE 

There  seem  to  be  two  opinions  about  journeying. 
Hazlitt,  who,  we  think,  carries  here  with  him  the 
majority  of  us,  finds  "  one  of  the  pleasantest  things  in 
the  world  is  going  on  a  journey."  He  was  at  his 
happiest  when  he  had  "  the  green  turf  beneath  his  feet, 
the  clear  blue  sky  overhead,  and  three  hours'  march 
to  dinner."  He  found  a  joy  in  losing  his  identity,  his 
importance;  in  "holding  to  the  universe  only  by  a 
dish  of  sweetbreads  "  ;  in  being  known  by  no  other 
name  than  "  the  gentleman  in  the  parlour."  On  the 
other  hand,  to  Marie  Bashkirtseff  travelling  was  "one 
of  the  saddest  pleasures  of  life.  When  you  really  feel 
at  ease  in  some  strange  town  it  is  because  you  are 
trying  to  make  it  a  home."  Some  will  agree  with  the 
Russian  girl ;  we  all  do  at  times.  It  is  according  to  our 
state  of  mind.  But  whatever  may  be  said  as  to  the 
joy  or  sadness  of  it,  travel  is  the  thing  that  stirs,  that 
educates  us.  In  a  month's  journeying  we  meet  with 
more  experiences  than  in  half  a  lifetime  of  home- 
keeping.  The  world's  history,  its  romance,  lie  along 
its  great  roads.  We  have  to-day  every  facility  for 
movement,  but  it  is  astonishing  how,  without  them, 
our  ancestors  contrived  to  get  about.  Our  to-and- 
froings    are    trifles    compared    with    what    has    been 

145  K 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

done  before  us.  We  read  of  whole  nations  transferring 
themselves.  What  a  story  is  that  which  Caesar  tells  of 
the  march  of  the  Helvetii,  who  started  by  burning 
their  towns  and  villages,  and  then  tramped  forth  in 
search  of  a  new  country  ;  or  that  which  De  Quincey  so 
vividly  depicts  of  the  march  of  the  Calmuck  Tartars 
across  the  Russian  steppes.  The  present  writer  will 
never  forget  the  sensation  with  which  he  found  himself 
once  on  the  high  mountain  road  just  above  Trebizond, 
in  full  view  of  the  Black  Sea,  when  the  thought  came 
to  him  that  he  was  on  the  very  spot  where,  more  than 
two  thousand  years  ago,  the  Greeks  of  Xenophon's 
**  Anabasis,"  after  their  terrible  march  through  Asia, 
at  sight  of  the  blue  water  raised  their  cry,  "Thalatta, 
Thalatta — the  sea,  the  sea!"  To  touch  a  two- 
thousand-year-old  history,  in  one  of  the  finest  scenes 
and  on  one  of  the  oldest  roads  of  the  world,  was  indeed 
a  prime  moment  of  consciousness. 

We  are  all  travellers,  and  on  the  great  scale.  Our 
little  peregrinations  on  this  planet  are  a  very  small 
part  of  the  journeys  we  are  taking.  We  shall  finish 
up  in  a  different  part  of  the  universe  from  where  we 
started.  Every  year  we  have  a  jaunt  of  some  hundred 
million  miles  round  the  sun.  And  we  are  accom- 
panying him  in  another  journey  which  he,  with  our 
planetary  system,  is  taking  towards  some  unknown 
bourne.  It  is  probable  also  that  the  whole  visible 
universe,  of  which  he  is  part,  is  also  on  the  move, 
journeying,  journeying — ye  gods,  whither !  Then 
alongside  this  journey  through  space  is  our  journey 
through  time.  We  are  on  the  move  from  a  beginning 
towards  an  end,  and  we  have  been  already  a  tolerably 

146 


En  Route 

long  time  on  the  road.  Our  biology,  our  physics,  our 
geology,  send  us  back  through  a  series  of  infinite 
gradations,  in  which  all  the  present  phenomena  of  life 
trace  down  to  simpler  and  simpler  forms,  until  at  last 
we  come  to  a  motionless  ether,  and  then  to  a  whirling, 
spiral  motion  there  as  starting-point  of  all  that 
followed.  But  was  that  the  veritable  beginning? 
How  or  whence  did  the  first  spin  come;  why  did  it 
take  that  form ;  and  how  came  it  about  that  it  should 
contain  in  itself  all  this  universe  of  matter  and 
of  mind?  There  seems  here  need  of  a  first-class 
engineer  who  wrapped  up  all  this  machinery  in  a 
spirule,  and  of  a  first-class  geographer  who  mapped 
the  road  of  its  movement. 

This  conviction  is  more  and  more  forced  upon  us 
when  we  consider  the  course  which  things  have  taken. 
The  journey  has  been  a  journey  upward.  Why  that  ? 
If  chaos  started  us,  we  should  keep  in  chaos.  Why  did 
not  the  original  ether-whirl  just  keep  on  whirling  and 
nothing  more  ?  If  all  is  an  affair  of  aimless  forces,  why 
did  they  not  go  on  for  ever  clashing  at  and  wrecking 
each  other  ?  Instead  there  has  never  been  a  stand- 
still even;  always  the  upward  cHmb.  The  seeming 
standstills  are  only  what  appear  such  to  our  impatience, 
to  our  limited  view.  Even  the  brief  history  of  man,  as 
we  know  it,  makes  mock  of  our  pessimism.  How  often 
he  has  declared  his  world  at  an  end  !  How  utter  is  the 
despair  of  Lucretius  ! 

Jamque  adeo  fracta  est  aetas 
Efifoetaque  tellus. 

"  Already  is  our  age  a  broken  age,  and  the  earth  worn 

147 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

out  ! "  Poor  Lucretius  !  The  human  age  had  hardly 
begun.  We  are  only  now  beginning  dimly  to  perceive 
the  length  and  the  bourne  of  its  journey.  It  is  curious, 
in  this  connection,  to  note  how  evolution,  which  in  the 
lifetime  of  many  of  us  was  regarded  as  the  deadly 
enemy  of  religion,  is  at  last  becoming  discerned  as  the 
teacher  of  its  deepest  truths.  Observe  what  it  reveals 
to  us.  In  its  ever  upward  trend  it  discovers  to  us  the 
mystic  secret  of  the  double  nature,  of  two  natures  in 
one.  The  vegetable  kingdom  has  come  out  of  the 
earth.  It  contains  the  matter  and  obeys  the  laws  of 
the  inorganic  world.  But  with  this  it  has  joined 
another  world — the  world  of  the  organic,  of  its  own 
vitality.  Further  on  the  animal  comes,  holding  in  it 
the  material  and  the  forces  of  the  vegetal,  but  with 
another  realm  of  things  brought  in — the  realm  of  its 
brute  consciousness,  of  its  animalhood.  But  things 
do  not  stop  here.  The  first  man  appears.  Into 
animalhood  there  comes  with  him  an  incarnation  of 
intellect,  of  conscience  and  of  will.  And  is  that  all  ? 
With  all  this  history  behind  us,  why  should  we  think 
so  ?  Modern  orthodoxy  and  our  most  desperate- 
seeming  heterodoxy  agree  in  affirming  the  contrary. 
From  the  latter  side  comes  Nietzsche,  who  affirms  that 
man  is  not  the  end  ;  he  is  the  bridge,  the  preparation 
for  something  beyond.  And  Schopenhauer,  from  that 
side  also,  declares  :  "  If  this  existence  were  the  ultimate 
goal  of  the  world,  it  would  be  the  most  senseless  ever 
contrived,  whether  it  were  ourselves  or  any  other 
who  fixed  it."  Coleridge,  far  from  this  standpoint,  has 
this  deep  word:  "All  things  strive  to  ascend,  and 
ascend  in  their  striving."     And  here  enters  Christi- 

148 


En  Route 

anity  with  its  philosophy  and  its  history.  It  affirms 
another  ascent,  another  double  nature.  It  offers  us 
the  story  of  the  Christ,  a  Man  of  men,  yet  containing  in 
Himself  a  something  higher,  the  first-born  of  yet 
another  creation,  the  example  and  forerunner  of 
divinehood,  the  opener  to  us  of  a  form  and  kind  of  life 
compared  with  which  humanity,  as  we  know  it,  will 
be  as  inferior  as  animalhood  is  to  man. 

Why  should  we  be  afraid  of  this  upward  movement, 
of  taking  it  as  an  integral  part  of  our  religious  thought  ? 
The  earlier  Church  Fathers  were  bolder  than  we. 
Origen  regards  historical  Christianity  itself  as  but  a 
passing  phase,  destined  at  last  to  be  superseded  and 
outgrown.  Certainly  we  may  go  as  far  as  Fiske,  who 
affirms  that  "  man  is  slowly  passing  from  a  primitive 
social  state,  in  which  he  was  little  better  than  a  brute, 
towards  an  ultimate  social  state  in  which  his  character 
shall  be  so  transformed  that  nothing  of  the  brute 
can  be  detected  in  it."  We  are  in  that  state  yet,  but 
there  are  signs  of  transformation.  It  has  been  said 
that  "if  Nature  does  not  take  leaps,  she  at  times 
makes  very  long  strides."  Human  nature  is  taking 
one  now.  Before  we  are  much  older  war  will  have 
become  impossible.  The  growing  moral  consciousness, 
one  might  say  even  the  growing  sense  of  humour,  will 
bring  it  to  an  end.  It  will  soon  be  as  absurd  for  a 
man  to  walk  in  Regent  Street  in  uniform,  behelmeted 
and  besworded,  as  to  walk  there  in  chain  armour. 
In  the  best  thinking  the  soldier  is  already  obsolete  ; 
and  it  is  thought  that  kills  and  makes  alive.  The 
nations  are  rushing  into  fellowship.  Politics  have 
received  new  marching  orders.     Their  word  of  com- 

149 


Lite  and  the   Ideal 

mand  is  a  word  from  the  centre  of  Christ's  Gospel, 
that  men  should  love  one  another.  So  the  journey 
continues  ;  the  journey  from  matter  to  mind,  from 
animal  to  man,  from  man  to  higher  man — higher, 
ever  higher  in  that  endless  progression  towards  all 
that  God  holds  in  His  thought  concerning  him. 

Let  us  come  to  some  more  personal  considerations. 
As  individuals  we  are  continually  making  journeys — 
not  with  our  feet  only,  but  with  other  parts  of  us. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  movement  of  desire.  The  surest 
evidence  that  man  on  this  planet  will  never  rest, 
and  never  be  satisfied,  is  the  fact  that  desire  exists 
in  him  as  a  component  part,  and  is  continually  being 
recreated  in  him.  It  is  perpetually  being  reproduced, 
as  surely  as  his  muscles  and  nerves  are  being  reproduced. 
And  because  it  is  there  it  must  ever  assert  itself, 
in  its  own  way.  And  its  way  is  that  of  a  perpetual 
pressure.  The  moment  it  reaches  its  end  it  starts 
afresh.  For  its  end  is  an  illusion,  a  disappointment. 
The  end,  indeed,  is  the  most  singular  part  of  it,  and  of 
us.  One  might  easily  build  a  doctrine  of  pessimism 
from  the  contemplation  of  ends.  Think  of  them. 
The  end  of  a  fox-hunt,  if  successful,  is  a  fox's  brush. 
The  end  of  a  climb  is  the  barren  summit.  The  end 
of  a  novel,  which  we  rush  towards  with  a  feverish 
excitement,  is  a  neant,  the  blank  page  which  follows 
the  last,  and  a  general  sense  of  nothingness.  A 
millionaire  has  made  his  fortune,  to  discover  that  all 
he  possesses  gives  him  nothing  more  than  what  every- 
one else  possesses — the  power  of  eating  his  meals,  of 
sleeping,  of  sitting  in  a  chair  and  talking  to  his  fellow  ; 
with  the  discovery  perhaps  that  he  cannot  talk  half  as 

150 


En  Route 

well  as  the  other  man.  How  limited  is  the  power 
of  this  kind  of  ownership  appears  when  we  remember 
that  the  ownership  is  only  for  the  present  moment. 
What  power  has  wealth  over  the  past  ?  The  man  of 
millions  looks  back  over  the  last  ten  years.  What  does 
he  own  there  ?  Nothing,  for  he  is  no  longer  there  to 
own  anything.  It  is  over  with  him  as  much  as  with 
you.  And  the  future  likewise,  for  he  is  not  there, 
and  very  likely  never  will  be  there,  at  least  in  this 
owning  capacity.  And  so  Nature  perpetually  thrusts 
us  out  of  our  ends,  tears  them  up  in  the  moment  of 
possession  and  bids  us  make  a  new  beginning.  Of  all 
seekers  the  sensualist  is  here  the  worst  off.  His 
senses  reach  their  goal,  to  find  it  satiety  and  disgust. 
If  he  finds  nothing  more  in  life,  he  goes  on,  in  the  spirit 
of  Omar  Khayyam  : 

Drink,  for  we  know  not  whence  we  came,  nor  why, 
Drink,  for  we  know  not  why  we  go,  nor  where. 

That  truly  is  the  beautiful  end  to  which  the  senses 
lead  us;  a  sufficient  evidence,  one  may  believe,  that 
they,  of  themselves,  are  not  intended  to  be  our  guide. 

It  is  this  mocking  illusion  of  the  sense-ends,  this 
mudbank  on  which  the  lower  desires  land  us,  that 
has  started  man  on  another  line  of  travel,  on  the 
spiritual  journey.  The  story  of  that  quest  forms  the 
world's  true  literature.  We  are  gathering  it  up  now 
from  all  sources,  and  it  makes  wonderful  reading. 
Take  it  where  you  will — in  the  Hindoo  Bhagavad-gita 
or  the  Buddhist  Tri-Pitakas,  or  the  Egyptian  Book 
of  the  Dead,  or  the  Palestine  Gospels,  or  the  mystical 
writings  of  the  mediaeval  age — you  find  everywhere 
the  same  note  struck.     It  is  the  note  of  renunciation. 

151 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

One  must  leave  the  lowlands  and  make  for  the  heights. 
Upward,  with  strain  and  toil,  along  the  rocky  path 
of  self-denial,  with  torn  and  blistered  feet,  the  pilgrim 
goes,  urged  by  a  mystic  voice  that  calls  to  him  from 
above.  The  men  who  follow  that  voice,  whether  of 
the  East  or  the  West,  are,  to  use  the  beautiful  phrase 
of  Matilda  of  Magdeburg,  of  "the  upper  school  of  the 
Holy  Spirit."  They  travel  by  Bonaventura's  "  Itiner- 
arium  mentis  in  Deum."  They  follow  the  way  opened 
in  "  The  Book  of  the  Nine  Rocks,"  that  wonderful 
vision  of  the  fourteenth  century,  where  the  pilgrim 
ascends  nine  several  stages  of  the  soul's  upward  path. 
The  breath  of  the  mountain  air  to  which  they  attain 
extinguishes  all  selfish  desire.  At  the  eighth  rock, 
the  writer  tells  us,  they  have  given  up  even  counting 
on  heaven  ;  for  they  are  now  ready  to  accept  God's 
will,  whatever  it  be,  in  time  or  in  eternity. 

This  journey  is,  in  one  aspect  at  least,  a  solitary 
one.  John  Bunyan  has  been  severely  criticised  for 
making  his  pilgrim  start  off  alone,  without  wife  or 
children,  in  his  quest  of  salvation.  Bunyan,  we  sus- 
pect, knew  what  he  was  about.  He  was  a  family  man 
himself  ;  loved  his  wife  and  children,  and  did  not 
neglect  their  religious  interests.  What  he  wanted 
to  point  out  was  that  the  soul,  in  its  inner  struggle 
and  triumph,  is  solitary.  It  does  not  start  here  as 
member  of  a  family.  The  fleshly  tie  is  not  the  highest. 
Often  enough  the  household  is  against  it.  The  call 
comes  to  itself  and  is  heard  by  itself.  It  seeks  some- 
thing which  the  family,  as  such,  cannot  be  reckoned 
upon  to  give.  Its  affinities,  when  it  finds  such,  are, 
as  often  as  not,  elsewhere.     The  Puritanism  he  stood 

152 


En  Route 

for  emphasized  the  principle  of  individuality.  As 
Green  puts  it :  "In  the  outer  world  of  worship  and 
discipline  the  Puritan  might  call  himself  one  of  many 
brethren ;  but  at  every  moment  of  his  inner  existence, 
in  the  hour  of  temptation  and  struggle,  in  his  dark 
and  troubled  wrestling  with  sin,  in  the  glory  of 
conversion,  in  the  peace  of  acceptance  with  God,  he 
stood  utterly  alone." 

But  these  spiritual  solitaries  do  not  remain  in 
isolation.  As  they  mount  they  draw.  A  force,  more 
subtle  than  gravitation,  but  not  less  real,  unites  them 
with  the  dwellers  in  the  plain  and  insensibly  lifts  them. 
The  English  Nonconformists,  heritors  of  the  Puritans 
in  choosing,  for  conscience'  sake,  a  separated  path, 
have  found  themselves  for  centuries  away  from  the 
sunshine  of  courtly  favour,  of  the  amenities  enjoyed 
by  fashion  and  rank.  But  the  impartial  historian, 
looking  back  on  those  centuries  of  England's  story, 
finds  in  that  abnegation  the  most  precious  elements 
of  the  nation's  life.  Who  will  now  dispute  this  state- 
ment of  Lecky  ?  "  It  is  difficult  indeed  to  describe 
the  debt  of  gratitude  that  England  owes  both  to  her 
own  non-episcopal  Churches  and  to  those  of  Scotland. 
In  good  report  and  evil,  amid  persecution  and  ingrati- 
tude and  horrible  wrongs,  in  ages  when  all  virtue 
seemed  corroded  and  when  apostasy  had  ceased  to  be 
a  stain,  they  clung  fearlessly  and  faithfully  to  the 
banner  of  her  freedom."  Nations  rise  to  the  extent 
in  which  they  follow  their  spiritual  heroes. 

We  are  en  route  for  somewhere.  But  do  we  ever 
arrive  ?  It  does  not  seem  so.  Nature  is  incessant  with 
her  cry  of  **  Onward  "  ;    we  never  get  from  her  the 

153 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

order  to  stay  and  be  satisfied.  From  our  most  com- 
fortable resting-places  she  stirs  us.  The  rush  of  the 
years  is  her  lance-point  that  pricks  us  forward.  We 
are  the  pilgrims  of  eternity.  Our  business  is  with 
journeying,  and  we  are  to  make  the  most  of  that. 
We  are  to  gather  as  we  go.  The  wayside  tramp  carries 
all  his  possessions  with  him.  We  are  his  brothers  here, 
for  all  we  can  really  carry  is  in  ourselves.  What  are 
we  accumulating  ?  As  we  look  back  upon  the  last 
ten  years,  what  inner  deposits  have  been  made  out  of 
all  the  experiences  we  have  passed  through  ?  For 
these  are  the  only  riches  that  are  portable.  Has 
there  been  a  clarifying  of  our  vision,  a  softening  of 
our  hardness,  a  detachment  from  the  world's  grossness, 
a  keener  appetite  for  nobleness  and  truth,  a  widening 
and  deepening  of  love's  holy  sphere  ?  If  our  journey 
has  not  brought  us  these,  it  has  brought  us  nothing. 

At  the  end  there  is  an  utter  failure  of  the  outward. 
Our  physical  strength  diminishes  till  it  reaches  vanish- 
ing point.  Little  by  little  our  senses  lose  their  power — 
the  sight  of  the  eye,  the  hearing  of  the  ear,  the  force 
of  life  in  weary  heart  and  brain.  Then  we  cease,  and 
what  is  left  goes  back  to  mother  earth.  But  what  do 
we  mean  by  ceasing  ?  What  is  the  death  of  the  day 
at  evening,  of  the  leaves  in  autumn  ?  The  end  here  is 
yet  another  illusion.  It  is  only  a  beginning.  Has 
our  body  ceased  in  dying  ?  Not  an  atom  of  it.  It  is 
eternal,  never  more  active  than  in  death.  And  those 
things  which  tabernacled  in  it  for  a  while — the  things 
we  call  thought,  love,  conscience,  desire,  the  spiritual 
sense — ^have  they  ceased  ?  Is  matter,  then,  immortal, 
and  the  spirit  which  governed  it  the  slave  of  to-day  ? 

154 


En    Route 

Is  this  imperial  essence,  which  knew  God  and  eternity, 
inferior  to  the  meanest  things  it  used  ?  Is  the  spirit's 
journey  the  only  one  which  arrives  at  nothing  ?  To 
admit  that  is  to  miss  the  whole  of  Nature's  lesson. 
Be  sure  that  here,  too,  the  night  is  followed  by 
morning. 


155 


XVI 
THE    IDEAL    IN    SELF-LOSS 

Life  is  a  constant  losing  and  finding.  It  is  a  daily 
struggle  of  our  identity  with  the  constant  waves  of 
change  that  beat  up  against  it.  We  never  carry  into 
to-day  all  that  we  were  yesterday.  Our  bodily  life  is 
a  continuous  come  and  go.  In  a  given  number  of 
years  we  have  inhabited  half-a-dozen  different  bodies. 
Our  hair,  teeth,  bones,  muscles,  are  all  a  refit.  We  cast 
off  our  physique  as  we  do  our  clothes.  The  limbs 
you  carried  about  with  you  a  while  ago  are  now  away 
in  the  outside  world,  gone  into  trees,  flowers,  into  other 
men's  bodies,  into  the  viewless  air.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  "  not-you  "  of  the  outside  world  is  waiting  to  come 
into  you,  to  take  on  the  colour  and  shape  of  your 
personality.  A  dozen  different  beings,  says  Sainte 
Beuve,  will  have  lived  in  me,  till  the  person  who  calls 
himself  by  my  name  com'es  to  his  final  end.  We  lose 
our  children  as  much  by  their  hfe  as  by  their  death. 
What  resemblance  is  there  between  the  puling  infant 
we  first  know  and  this  skittish  maiden,  this  lusty  boy  ? 
We  meet  the  companion  of  our  schooldays,  and  have 
to  be  reintroduced  to  him.  The  changes  here  are 
ordinarily  slow,  but  sometimes  they  are  very  rapid. 
There  is  a  story  of  an  Indian  criminal  led  out  to 
execution  whose  hair,  as  he  walked  to  the  place  of 

156 


The  Ideal  in  Self-Loss 

death,  whitened  in  the  view  of  the  spectators.  Men 
grow  old  in  a  night.  A  mental  shock,  a  sudden  catas- 
trophe, will  put  a  yawning  gulf  between  their  past  and 
their  present.  At  every  moment  we  may  ask  ourselves, 
"  Where  do  we  begin  and  where  do  we  end  ?  What, 
just  now,  is  the  *  I  '  and  the  '  not  I '  ?  "  The  breath 
I  draw  was,  a  moment  ago,  the  outer  air.  It  is  now  a 
part  of  my  lungs.  The  breath  I  exhale,  which  belonged 
to  me,  has  now  taken  leave  of  me,  on  the  way  to  be 
fifty  other  things. 

But  this  is  only  a  beginning  of  the  business.  Every 
day  we  are  entering  on  the  most  daring  experiments 
with  our  identity.  When  we  go  to  sleep  we  fling  our 
whole  consciousness  upon  the  void.  We  close  our 
eyes,  and  what  has  become  of  our  will,  our  thought, 
our  credit  or  discredit,  our  pleasure  and  pain  ?  Sleep, 
said  the  ancients,  is  the  twin  brother  of  death.  We 
talk  of  dying  as  a  serious  affair,  but  we  die  every  night, 
and  our  waking  is  a  resurrection.  We  sleep,  and  the 
world  goes  on  without  us.  Something  not  ourselves 
is  taking  care  of  our  life  for  us.  Our  mentality  has 
utterly  disappeared,  to  re-form  itself  in  some  mira- 
culous way  a  few  hours  afterwards.  Or  if  our  thought 
lives  at  all,  it  is  in  another  world,  where  the  old  laws 
are  turned  upside  down.  It  is  wonderful  that  we 
should  be  afraid  of  death  and  not  be  afraid  of  sleep. 
We  lose  ourselves  in  the  one  not  less  effectually  than 
in  the  other. 

Modern  psychology  is  making  curious  inquiries  into 
this  question  of  our  identity,  and  is  obtaining  some 
astonishing  results.  It  was  the  opinion  of  Myers 
that  we   have   several  inchoate   identities   struggling 

157 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

within  us,  and  that  the  actual  **  I  "  is  the  survival  of 
the  fittest.  We  hear  of  experiments  under  trance 
conditions,  where  the  ordinary  personaHty  is  for  the 
time  being  displaced  by  another,  belonging,  as  it  seems, 
to  another  time  and  with  an  entirely  different  mental 
and  moral  outfit.  Psychical  explorers,  such  as  Max- 
well, speak  of  a  conscious  and  a  subconscious  memory ; 
the  one  subject  to  constant  losses  and  forgettings,  the 
other  holding  our  every  experience  in  its  treasure- 
house  and  prepared  to  produce  it  under  proper 
conditions.  Our  entire  self  here  appears  to  be  like 
an  iceberg,  which  shows  only  a  small  portion  of 
its  bulk  above  the  waves,  the  greater  part  hidden 
underneath.  The  suggestion  here  is  a  pregnant  one. 
It  is  that  our  mental  losses  are  only  in  the  seeming. 
Just  as  in  sleeping  we  carry  all  with  us,  though  un- 
consciously, to  be  picked  up  again  when  we  wake,  so 
our  waking  life  carries  with  it  all  our  apparently  lost 
inner  treasure,  to  be  recovered  in  yet  another  awaking. 
So  far  we  have  been  discussing  natural  processes, 
which  go  on  apart  from  our  own  will,  and  that  lie  out- 
side the  question  of  character.  We  can  come  now  to  a 
more  practical  side.  In  the  area  of  our  actual  life 
there  arise  questions  on  this  theme  which  go  very 
deep  down,  and  where  everything  depends  on  the  way 
we  answer  them.  ReHgion,  for  instance,  calls  on  us 
to  lose  ourselves,  and  it  is  all-important  for  us  to  know 
what,  precisely,  is  meant  by  this.  We  know  how  the 
idea  has  been  interpreted  in  certain  quarters.  In 
some  religious  communities  it  is  required  of  members 
that  they  surrender  their  own  conscience,  their  own 
judgment,  as  a  condition  of  fellowship.     In  the  regu- 

is8 


The   Ideal  in  Self-Loss 

lations  of  the  Jesuit  Order  it  is  laid  down  that  the 
neophyte,  in  relation  to  his  superior,  must  be  as  a 
corpse  that  is  moved  without  will  of  its  own,  as  a 
musical  instrument  that  is  played  upon  at  will  by  its 
owner.  Perfection  lies  in  blind  obedience.  Some- 
thing very  similar  is  exacted  by  all  the  monastic 
orders.  And  the  Roman  Church  as  a  whole  expressly 
denies  and  denounces  the  right  of  private  judgment 
in  its  members.  A  man  must  believe  as  the  Church 
believes.  The  Catholic  has  had  all  his  thinking  done 
for  him.  The  theologians  of  fifteen  centuries  ago 
were  free  to  use  their  reason  on  the  abstrusest  subjects. 
But  their  successors  are  not  free.  The  man  of  the 
twentieth  century  must  take  their  antiquated  thought 
as  his  own.  Is  that  how  we  are  to  **  lose  ourselves  " 
as  Christians  ? 

But  the  CathoHcs  have  had  no  monopoly  of  this 
idea.  It  has  been  the  deadly  temptation  of  dominant 
minds  in  every  age  to  take  their  thinking  not  only  as 
a  privilege  for  themselves,  but  as  a  rule  for  others.  It 
has  a  curious  recrudescence  in  our  own  day.  America, 
the  supposed  home  of  liberty,has  supplied  some  of  the 
strangest  examples.  The  followers  of  Thomas  Lake 
Harris  were  taught  to  seek  perfection  in  an  absolute 
negation  of  their  own  conscience  in  favour  of  that 
of  their  prophet.  Mrs.  AHce  Oliphant,  a  lady  of 
culture  and  refinement,  thus  expresses  herself  in  view 
of  this  sacrifice:  "One  only  thing  has  been  a  terrible 
pang  to  me,  the  giving  over  of  my  own  judgment  in 
questions  of  moral  judgment  to  any  human  authority. 
It  is  so  absolutely  new  and  inexplicable  an  idea  to  me, 
that  any  outer  test  should  supplant,  without  risk  to 

159 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

itself  and  me,  the  inner  test  of  my  actions  that  my 
conscience  affords."  And  yet  she  gave  up  all  this, 
though  she  felt  she  was  throwing  her  own  compass 
overboard,  and  quenching  the  one  clear  light  that  God 
had  given  her.  And  in  the  so-called  "  Christian 
Science"  movement  we  have  the  singular  spectacle 
of  a  large  number  of  respectable  people,  in  America 
and  elsewhere,  offering  up  their  entire  mentality  to 
the  rule  of  their  leader.  Mrs.  Eddy,  a  lady  who 
makes  up  for  the  deficiences  of  a  very  badly  furnished 
intellect  by  a  most  imperious  will,  gives  out  her  own 
crude  notions  about  God,  the  world,  the  Bible  and 
herself,  as  a  law  about  which  there  is  to  be  no  dispute. 
Preaching  is  disallowed  in  her  synagogues.  There  is 
to  be  no  word  but  her  own.  Again  we  ask  :  Is  this 
the  true  way  of  losing  ourselves  ? 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  here  that  people  who,  from 
a  religious  motive,  throw  their  intellect  away  are 
always  those  who  have  no  intellect  of  consequence  to 
throw  away.  There  have  been  brilliant  minds  who 
have  come  under  this  obsession.  There  are  men 
who,  in  this  way,  sin  against  themselves  by  fear, 
or  by  an  excessive  humiUty.  In  the  excesses  which 
followed  in  Germany  from  Luther's  movement  we  see 
a  learned  man  like  Carlstadt  declaring  there  was  no 
further  need  for  academic  study;  and  a  scholar  like 
Mohr  exhorting  the  people  to  take  their  children  from 
school.  ' *  Had  they  not  among  them  divine  prophets — 
Storch,  Stiibner,  Thoma,  men  who  without  any  study 
were  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost  ?  "  Newman  deliber- 
ately closed  down  his  intellect,  at  the  bidding  of  a 
faith  that  was  really  a  doubt.     He  knew  no  science, 

1 60 


The   Ideal  in  Self-Loss 

he  knew  no  German;  he  turned  from  critical  studies. 
He  lost  the  best  knowledge  of  ^his  day  for  fear  that 
he  should  lose  his  soul.  And  in  circles  nearer  home 
we  have  heard  of  a  Nonconformist  minister  explain- 
ing as  his  reason  for  not  learning  German  that  the 
studies  it  opened  were  inimical  to  faith ! 

With  notions  like  these  abroad  it  is  time  we  faced 
for  ourselves  the  question  as  to  what  is  the  really 
Christian  meaning  of  "losing  ourselves."  Take  as  the 
starting-point,  as,  indeed,  the  foundation  of  it,  the 
two  great  words  of  Jesus.  In  Matt.  x.  39  we  read  : 
"  He  that  loseth  his  hfe  for  My  sake  shall  find  it."  In 
Mark  viii.  36  we  have  :  "  What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if 
he  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his  own  soul?" 
Here  we  find  a  plain  doctrine  of  losing.  But  observe  : 
it  is  one  where  the  emphasis  is  on  finding  and  on 
keeping.  In  the  first  of  these  words  the  losing  is  for 
the  sake  of  the  finding.  In  the  second,  the  essential 
self — the  guarding  and  keeping  of  that — is  placed  as 
immeasurably  beyond  all  external  gains.  You  are 
not  to  lose  your  personality.  You  are  to  keep  it 
at  all  costs.  A  man  may  safely  sacrifice  everything 
— but  his  own  soul.  The  hero,  the  martyr,  may  meet 
all  the  buffets  of  circumstance  ;  they  will  only  enhance 
the  value  of  himself.  He  may  let  everything  go — 
fortune,  honour,  his  very  flesh  and  bones.  The  essen- 
tial in  him  will  still  be  there,  and  mightier  than  ever. 
That  will  gain  by  whatever  he  loses.  The  buffets, 
the  pains  will  be  transmuted  into  force — factors  that 
feed  and  nourish  his  central  self.  For  his  faith  is  in  a 
spiritual  indestructible  within  him  that  is  related  to  a 
spiritual    indestructible    outside    him.     His    death — 

161  L 


Life   and   the   Ideal 

if  it  comes  to  that — will  be  as  the  leap  of  a  swimmer 
into  the  water,  sure  that  he  will  swim  there.  Is  there 
here  any  hint  of  that  destruction  of  self,  of  our  intellect, 
our  conscience,  our  will,  that,  as  we  have  seen,  has  so 
often  been  taught  in  the  name  of  religion  ?  It  is  the 
precise  contrary  that  is  affirmed.  It  is  the  augmenta- 
tion of  these,  the  purifying,  the  lifting  of  them  to  the 
highest  power,  that  we  find  in  the  doctrine  of  Christ. 

And  this  truth  is,  in  the  Christian  teaching,  linked 
to  a  yet  higher  one.  It  is  that  the  essential  root-self 
in  man  is  of  Divine  origin — yea,  of  the  Divine  sub- 
stance. Before  Athanasius  used  the  term,  Greek 
thinkers  had  spoken  of  man  as  homoousios,  of  the 
same  essence  as  God,  and  our  Christian  thought 
affirms  it.  When  the  prodigal  came  to  "himself," 
his  true  self,  he  had  come  back  to  God.  That,  indeed, 
is  our  doctrine  of  conversion.  It  is  finding  the  best 
in  us  and  becoming  obedient  to  that.  It  is  the  process 
of  God  realising  Himself  in  man.  It  is  in  this  sense 
we  feel  the  force  of  that  fine  saying  in  the  "  Theologia 
Germanica"  :  **  The  more  the  self,  the  I,  the  Me,  the 
Mine,  that  is,  self-seeking  and  selfishness,  abate  in 
a  man,  the  more  God's  '  I,'  that  is,  God  Himself, 
increases  in  him."  The  "losing"  is  always  of  that 
which  is  beneath  our  best,  in  order  that  this  may 
grow   from   more   to   more. 

The  whole  emphasis  here,  we  repeat,  is  not  in 
losing  the  man,  but  in  finding  him.  Conversion  does 
not  destroy  or  maim  a  man's  individuality;  it  reveals 
it  and  strengthens  it.  To  change  you  into  somebody 
else  would  be  a  sorry  affair  ;  you  are  worth  more  than 
that.    When  people  lose  themselves  in  the  true  sense, 

162 


The  Ideal   in  Self-Loss 

they  are  never  more  truly  themselves.  A  mother 
gives  her  Hfe  to  her  husband,  her  children;  thinks  of 
their  comfort  first  and  her  own  last.  It  is  precisely 
thus  that  she  finds  all  the  fruitions  of  her  nature.  Here 
finds  she  her  cross  and  crown.  A  Lollard  woman 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  Margery  Baxter,  put  the 
doctrine  in  a  quaint  but  effective  way.  Addressing 
her  sisters,  she  asked  why  they  ran  to  worship  dead 
crosses  in  churches.  "  If  ye  desire,"  said  she,  "  to 
see  the  true  Cross  of  Christ,  I  will  show  it  to  you  at 
home  in  your  own  house."  Then  stretching  out  her 
arms  she  said  :  **  This  is  the  true  Cross  of  Christ, 
and  this  Cross  thou  oughtest  and  mayest  every  day 
behold  and  worship  in  thine  own  house."  Good 
Margery  Baxter!  A  mother's  arms,  toiling,  enfold- 
ing, nourishing,  are  a  better  representation  of 
Christ's  Cross  than  any  pearl-studded  crucifix  that 
ever  adorned  cathedral  shrine  ! 

All  this,  we  say,  points  to  the  one  Christian  founda- 
tion of  losing  ourselves.  It  is  that  we  may  find  and 
keep  our  true  personahty.  We  began  by  speaking 
of  the  changes  in  our  hfe.  But  the  very  phrase, 
**I  change,"  --You  change,'-  affirms  the  indestructi- 
bility of  the  *'I,''  the  -'you."  In  it  all  you  are  still 
you,  and  not  somebody  else.  And  the  business  here 
is  to  make  the  best  " you"  there  can  be.  Personality 
is  the  one  thing  that  counts,  is  the  one  thing  needful. 
Whatever  dwarfs  or  hinders  that  is  the  evil  to  fight 
against.  This  is  the  rule  by  which  we  must  judge  all 
outside  developments.  If  a  man's  J  possessions  are 
eating  away  his  inner  life,  his  riches  are  a  deficit.  The 
soul  of  a  nation  is  in  the  person ahties  it  is  rearing. 

163 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

Real  reform  is  the  removing  of  hindrances  from  that  ; 
is  the  securing  of  conditions  which  help  that.  When 
we  talk  of  purging  our  city  slums,  of  securing  the  land 
for  the  people,  the  one  sufficient  argument  for  the  move- 
ment is  that  room  may  thereby  be  made  for  souls  to 
grow  in,  and  for  healthy  bodies  as  their  instruments. 
If  our  pontics  are  not  doing  that,  they  are  doing 
nothing.  Is  not  this  a  sane  plea  which  Dr.  Wallace, 
as  a  scientist,  urges  ?  **  We  claim  to  be  a  people  of 
high  ambition, of  advanced  science,  of  great  humanity, 
of  enormous  wealth.  For  very  shame  do  not  let  us 
say,  *  We  cannot  arrange  matters  so  that  our  people 
may  all  breathe  unpolluted,  unpoisoned  air.' "  The 
one  political  truth  for  us  to  study  is  that  England 
to-day  has  from  unwholesome  conditions  lost  a  good 
deal  of  its  soul,  and  must  set  to  work  in  dead 
earnest  to  find  it. 

There  is  a  soul  of  movements,  of  societies,  as  well 
as  of  individuals,  and  what  is  true  of  the  last  is  true  of 
these  others.  A  movement  may  gain  the  world  and 
lose  its  soul.  Rehgion  has  met  that  fate  age  after 
age.  There  is  no  ghastUer  sight  than  the  corpse  of  a 
Church  from  which  the  inner  hfe  has  departed.  What 
a  picture  is  that  which  Jerome  draws  of  the  Roman 
clergy  of  his  time — the  officers  of  a  Church  that  had 
had  Paul  among  its  teachers,  that  had  endured 
martyrdom  for  the  truth  !  He  speaks  of  them  as 
**  flattering  rich  matrons,  spending  the  day  in  calls 
at  grand  houses,  admiring  a  cushion  or  a  handkerchief 
by  way  of  obtaining  it  as  a  present,  walking  abroad 
with  hair  aesthetically  arranged,  and  rings  glittering 
on   their  fingers  ;   also  of  monks  who  wormed  their 

164 


The  Ideal  in  Self-Loss 

way  into  favour  with  the  rich,  and  pretended  to 
fast,  while  they  repaid  themselves  nightly  with 
revelry."  It  is  an  old,  an  age-long  story,  and  the 
painfullest  of  reading.  One  of  the  worst  losses  in 
this  connection  is  where  a  religious  community, 
hardened  from  its  first  fervours,  has  substituted  for 
soul- winning  and  soul- training  the  preservation  of  a 
mechanical  orthodoxy,  of  a  conventional  habit  of 
speech  ;  where  its  salaried  servants  have  sunk  the 
man  in  the  official,  where  the  prophets  have  dwindled 
into  priests,  careful  of  a  creed,  of  a  ritual ;  bUnd  to 
the  signs  of  the  times,  deaf  to  the  call  of  the  spirit. 
When  the  Church  has  become  a  convention  it  is 
time  to  give  it  another  name. 

Jesus,  the  witness  of  the  eternal  spirit  in  man,  found 
Himself  after  the  Cross.  He  leaped  into  death  to 
find  it  a  life.  He  lives  because  He  died.  So  rich  was 
He  in  life,  so  sure  of  it,  that  He  could  promise  it  to  all 
who  follow  its  law.  *'  Because  I  live  ye  shall  live  also." 
Our  bodily  part  may  pass  through  infinite  trans- 
formations, but  the  spiritual  thing  which  inhabits  it, 
into  whose  structure  are  wrought  love,  truth,  purity, 
sacrifice,  is  of  another  order  and  has  another  destiny. 
"  Wherefore,"  says  Socrates  in  the  "  Phsedo,"  "  let  a 
man  be  of  good  cheer  about  his  soul,  who  has  cast 
away  the  pleasures  and  ornaments  of  the  body,  as 
alien  to  him,  .  .  .  who  has  arrayed  the  soul  in 
her  own  proper  jewels,  which  are  temperance,  and 
justice,  and  courage,  and  abiHty,  and  truth  ;  thus 
adorned,  she  shows  herself  ready  to  go  on  her  journey, 
when  her  hour  comes."  Here  truly  was  a  gospel  before 
the  Gospel,  a  word  of  the  Spirit,  drawn  from  a  spiritual 

165 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

experience.  The  prophet  of  Athens  knew  that  to 
lose  was  to  gain,  that  to  sleep  was  to  wake,  that 
the  divine  in  him  knew  no  death.  Deeper  experiences 
have  followed  his,  and  their  testimony  is  the  same. 
Let  us  keep  ourselves  in  training  for  that  high  destiny. 

There  is  no  death ;  what  seems  so  is  transition : 

This  life  of  mortal  breath 
Is  but  a  suburb  of  the  life  elysian 

Whose  portal  we  call  death. 


i66 


XVII 
THE  IDEAL  AND  THE  WALL 

There  is  a  certain  wild,  little-known  pass  in  the 
Orisons  where  the  present  writer,  on  a  sunny  day  of 
mid-winter,  found  himself  shut  up  as  in  a  prison. 
The  rock  walls  on  either  side  swept  round  in  a  great 
curve.  Looking  this  way  and  that,  no  outlet  was 
discernible.  The  eye,  Hfting  from  the  dazzHng  snow 
around,  was  met  by  giant  precipices,  frowning, 
unscaleable,  while  above  was  a  sky  that,  in  contrast 
with  the  gUtter  beneath,  seemed  a  dome  of  ebon 
blackness.  It  was  the  weirdest  scene;  as  if  one  were 
at  the  bottom  of  a  crater  in  the  moon.  But  the  eye 
was  here  a  deceiver.  There  was  a  way  out.  The  foot 
found  its  road.  And  were  those  rock  walls  really 
unscaleable  ?  It  is  wonderful  what  a  cragsman  will 
do  in  the  most  impossible  situations.  And  "unscale- 
able" is  a  relative  term.  Where  the  foot  cannot  go 
a  bird's  wing  will  carry.  And  we,  too,  are  learning 
to  fly. 

Human  life,  as  we  now  know  it,  seems  imaged  in 
that  scene.  We  are  at  present  the  prisoners  of  time ; 
shut  in  a  closed  valley,  where  vast  rock  walls  tower 
on  every  side — menacing,  forbidding — which  mock 
our  efforts  to  cUmb,  and  shut  out  the  prospect  in 
directions  where  we  most  want  the  view.     Yet  the 

167 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

valley  has  the  infinite  overhead.  And  the  impossible 
walls  themselves  may,  perhaps,  yet  be  scaled.  Here 
is  our  parable.  Let  us  glance  along  some  of  the 
directions  in  which  it  seems  to  hold. 

We  are,  to  begin  with,  shut  in  the  prison  of  our 
personaHty.  Adamant  is  softness  compared  with  the 
quality  of  the  wall  that  separates  between  you  and  me. 
We  talk  of  carrying  another  man's  burdens,  but  what 
you  can  lift  there  is  only  the  veriest  splinter  and 
outside  fragment  of  your  neighbour.  A  mother 
would  fain  bear  her  child's  pain,  but  its  pain  is  an 
untransferable  commodity.  To  jump  off  your  own 
shadow  is  a  feat  beyond  the  compass  of  athletics. 
When  the  oculist  has  done  his  best,  I  go  on  seeing 
with  my  own  eye,  and  not  with  yours.  The  soul  in  its 
utmost  rapture,  when  it  would  fain  mingle  itself 
with  the  All  of  things,  is  flung  back  finally  upon  its 
own  hmitations.  And  yet,  even  here,  do  we  not 
discern  a  loophole  ?  Science,  and  still  more  the 
human  evolution,  have  not  yet  done  with  the  problem 
of  personality;  with  the  widening  possibilities  of  it. 
And  in  the  meantime  is  there  nothing  in  that  saying 
of  Schopenhauer — that  grim  philosopher  who,  never- 
theless, sees  so  far  and  so  deep — that  "the  plurality 
and  difference  of  individuals  is  but  a  phenomenon; 
that  is,  it  exists  only  in  my  mental  picture.  My 
true,  innermost  being  subsists  in  every  living  thing, 
just  as  really,  as  directly  as,  in  my  own  consciousness, 
it  is  evident  to  myself"? 

Another  of  the  rock  walls  is  that  which  separates 
us  from  our  world.  We  never  really  get  at  our  world. 
We  know  nothing  of  the  ultimate  reality  which  gives 

i68 


The  Ideal  and  the  Wall 

US  our  sensations  of  hardness,  of  whiteness,  of  whatever 
else  we  encounter  in  our  contact  with  Nature.  Would 
there  be  any  whiteness  without  the  eye  that  registers 
the  sensation  ?  All  we  can  affirm  is  the  existence  of 
an  outside  something  which,  playing  on  our  particular 
organs,  gives  this  particular  form  of  consciousness. 
Would  there  be  any  weight  or  hardness  without  a 
mind  that  is  sensible  of  these  things  ?  One  may  say, 
indeed,  there  could  be  no  universe  without  mind.  It 
is  only  in  mind  that  any  universe  can  exist.  Bradley 
is  expressing  the  A  B  C  of  any  rational  philosophy  in 
his  declaration  that  "  outside  of  spirit  there  is  not, 
and  there  cannot  be,  any  reality,  and  the  more  that 
anything  is  spiritual,  so  much  the  more  is  it  veritably 
real."  One  does  not  wonder  even  at  that  extrava- 
gance of  solipsism  which,  keeping  only  to  one  side  of 
the  problem,  says  :  "I  cannot  transcend  experience, 
and  experience  must  be  my  experience.  From  this 
it  follows  that  nothing  beyond  myself  exists."  But 
that  is  metaphysics  run  mad.  It  is  the  dazed 
expression  of  the  man  who  has  stared  at  his 
rock  wall  till  it  has  turned  his  brain.  He  does  not 
see  the  wa}^  out,  the  way  of  faith,  which  assures 
us  that  what  we  see  and  feel  of  the  outside  world, 
while  not  the  whole  of  reaUty,  is  yet  congruous  with 
it ;  that  the  testimony  of  our  senses  and  that  of 
our  fellows  is  a  true  testimony  so  far  as  it  goes  ; 
that  we  are  not  befooled  by  our  world  ;  that  our 
contact  with  reahty,  though  far  from  complete,  is 
actual  and  veritable. 

Before  and  behind  us  also  rise  our  imprisoning  walls. 
Properly  to  understand  life,  and  especially  the  rehgious 

169 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

life,  we  seem  to  need  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the  past. 
Especially  does  it  so  seem  with  Christianity,  which 
is  so  largely  an  historical  reHgion.  It  is  so  bound  up 
with  what  happened  nineteen  centuries  ago.  What 
did  happen  ?  That  is  what  we  are  all  to-day  craning 
our  necks  to  see.  But  we  cannot  see  clearly.  The 
obstructing  wall  here  is  one  of  mist.  If  only  we  could 
leap  across  the  gulf  of  time,  pass  through  that  haze  of 
tradition,  stand  there  in  Palestine  with  our  modern 
instruments  of  observation,  and  note  the  facts  as  they 
actually  took  place!  Could  we  only  resurrect  Paul 
or  John  and  cross-examine  them  !  Could  we  come 
across  the  writer  of  the  fourth  gospel,  and  learn  from 
him  when  and  how  he  did  it  !  Or  interview  the  writer 
of  Matthew,  and  hear  from  him  about  the  Logia  and 
his  other  sources  !  Or  go  back  still  farther  to  the 
groups  that  surrounded  the  marvellous  Life,  the 
people  of  Capernaum,  of  Bethany,  or,  better  still, 
the  inmates  of  the  home  at  Nazareth,  and  obtain  at 
first  hand,  instead  of  at  tenth  or  twelfth  hand,  their 
story  !  What  theologic  revolutions  would  there  be ; 
what  toppHngs  down  of  arrogant  dogmatisms ;  what  a 
clearing  up  of  misunderstandings  ;  what  a  cooling  of 
sectarian  heats  and  passions,  bred  on  ignorance  and 
prejudice  ! 

Will  it  ever  be  thus  ?  Will  that  mist  never  lift  ? 
Let  us  not  be  too  sure.  Historical  criticism  is,  amongst 
other  things,  a  way  of  seeing  backwards,  and  its  eye 
becomes  ever  clearer.  The  discoverer,  too,  is  at  work. 
The  world,  notably  the  Eastern  world,  is  full  of  buried 
records,  and  any  day  may  bring  us  revelations  in  that 
direction  which  may  solve  long-standing  mysteries. 

170 


The  Ideal  and  the   Wall 

It  has  been  remarked,  in  computing  the  distance  of 
the  stars,  that  the  light  from  our  earth  would  take 
thousands  of  years  to  reach  some  of  them ;  and  that, 
consequently,  if  there  were  beings  yonder  capable  of 
noting  what  passed  on  our  earth,  what  they  would 
now  see  would  be  the  events  that  transpired  there 
thousands  of  years  ago.  It  is  a  curious  speculation, 
which  suggests  another.  Who  knows  if  the  reflections 
of  past  history,  treasured  up  thus  amongst  the 
spheres,  may  not,  in  the  future  development  of  our 
own  and  other  races,  be  sent  back  upon  the  human 
consciousness,  making  it  thus  master  of  its  entire 
past  ? 

Meanwhile  our  existing  uncertainty  in  this  region 
yields  of  itself  some  certainties.  One  is  that  our 
present  ignorance  in  many  high  matters  is  in  accord 
with  the  Divine  order,  and  is  to  be  acquiesced  in  as 
such.  There  is  enough  in  our  actual  records  and  our 
inner  experience  for  the  highest  Hfe  to  subsist  upon. 
And  w^e  may  make  the  best  of  what  we  have.  In  the 
absence  of  a  wider  space,  as  Candide  says,  **  il  faut 
cuUiver  notre  jar  din."  The  garden  is  somewhat  cir- 
cumscribed, but  it  yields  excellent  fruit.  The  Gospel 
is  girded  with  mystery,  and  provokes  more  questions 
than  it  answers.  But  that  robs  it  of  none  of  its 
inspiring  force.  Its  witness  of  Love,  Life  and  Power 
remains  for  ever  intact,  and  Hes  there  for  our  per- 
petual use.  Another  certainty  here  is  that  doubt  on 
doubtful  points  is  entirely  legitimate;  and  that 
condemnation  of  it,  as  though  it  were  bad  morality, 
or  bad  spirituality,  is  entirely  wrong.  When  I 
ostracise  my  brother  because  his  honest  conclusions 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

in  these  matters  differ  from  mine,  there  is,  in  the 
imbroglio,  one  sure  thing — that  I  am  the  sinner  and 
not  he.  And  finally  here,  when  knowledge  fails,  faith 
comes  in.  It  is  the  triumphant  eagle-wing  by  which 
we  scale  our  wall.  And  of  faith  there  is  no  better 
definition  than  that  of  Pascal  :  "  Voild  ce  que  c'esf 
la  foi  parfaite  ;  Dieu  sensible  au  cceur  "  (Here  is  the 
perfect  faith,  God  felt  in  the  heart). 

Thus  far  of  the  backward  look.  But  the  greatest 
mystery  is  not  on  that  side.  The  real  wonder  of 
human  life  is  that  we  should  have  so  keen  a  sense  of 
the  future,  and  yet  be  powerless  to  see  into  it.  Our 
eye  traverses  milHons  of  miles  of  space,  and  yet  is 
blind  to  what  is  going  to  happen  to-morrow.  There 
is  no  role  on  which  we  are  more  intent  than  prophecy, 
and  we  have  no  equipment  for  it.  The  event  is  there, 
travelling  towards  us ;  it  may  be  a  new  acquaintance, 
a  book  that  we  shall  read,  an  accident,  a  death  ; 
it  is  laden  with  our  fortunes,  may  alter  the  whole 
course  and  quality  of  our  life  ;  but  whence  the  event 
may  come,  or  when,  or  how,  or  what  elements  it  may 
contain,  all  this  is  hidden  from  us.  Hidden,  that  is, 
from  our  reason.  And  yet  the  evidence  is  accumulating 
that,  hidden  in  our  nature,  or  possessed  by  outside 
powers  that  touch  closely  on  our  lives,  are  faculties 
of  divination  that  somehow  are  in  contact  with  that 
future,  and  know  it  ere  it  comes.  Before  the  Messina 
earthquake  an  Italian  lady  sees  it  repeatedly  in  her 
dream.  It  is  recorded  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana  that 
when  at  Ephesus  he  saw  in  spirit  the  assassination  of 
Domitian  at  Rome.  Who  shall  penetrate  these 
mysteries;  mysteries  which  traverse  all  our  notions 

172 


The  Ideal  and  the   Wall 

of  time  and  space ;  which  show  us  events  before  they 
have  become  events  ;  on  their  way,  as  it  were,  to 
the  sphere  of  existence,  casting  their  shadow  upon 
human  souls  ?  Do  they  not  point  to  a  world 
impinging  on  our  own,  but  deeper  than  time  and 
beyond  space  ?  Evidently  the  future  is  not,  after 
all,  an  unscaleable  wall.  The  question  here  is  simply 
of  height  and  quaUty  of  being.  What  is  evident  is 
that  present,  past,  and  future  are  Hnked  in  one 
orderly  movement,  one  where  the  as  yet  unhappened, 
closed  to  us,  is  yet  open  to  other  vision  than  our  own. 
We  are  hemmed  in  with  mysteries.  The  simplest 
things,  when  lool^ed  into,  make  a  fool  of  our  reason. 
We  have  just  spoken  of  time  as  past,  present,  and 
future.  It  seems  the  simplest  of  notions,  but  try  to 
analyse  it  and  you  are  all  in  confusion.  Can  you 
catch  the  present  ?  In  the  process  of  thinking  it 
is  gone.  Every  moment,  and  every  smallest  fraction 
of  a  moment,  is  ever  a  becoming  that  is  never  there. 
You  Hve  by  impossibles.  The  essence  of  life  is 
movement,  and  yet  philosophy,  from  Zeno  down- 
wards, has  its  logical  proof  of  the  impossibility  of 
motion.  Nothing  is  surer  to  you,  more  conscious 
in  you,  than  the  free  exercise  of  your  will ;  yet 
there  all  metaphysics  are  against  you.  As  Dr. 
Johnson  said,  all  experience  is  for  it  and  all  philo- 
sophy against  it.  You  say  you  see  with  your  eye, 
and  hear  with  your  ear,  and  think  with  your  brain  ; 
but  Tyndall,  whom  people  have  so  oddly  thought  a 
materialist,  has,  on  the  subject,  this  to  say:  "  The 
passage  from  the  physics  of  the  brain  to  the 
corresponding  facts  of  consciousness  is  inconceivable 

173 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

as  the  result  of  mechanism.  The  problem  of  the 
connection  of  body  and  soul  is  as  insoluble  in  its 
modern  form  as  it  was  in  the  pre-scientific  ages." 

These  unscaleable  walls  !  As  we  contemplate  them 
we  seem  indeed  in  a  prison-house.  Plato,  as  he  con- 
templated them,  painted  the  human  condition  in  his 
celebrated  picture  of  the  cave  where  men,  shut  out 
from  the  vision  of  reality,  saw  only  the  shadows  of 
things  thrown  upon  the  wall.  Carlyle,  in  our  day 
studying  them,  puts  into  burning  words  the  sense 
of  his  bewilderment  :  "  We  emerge  from  the  inane  ; 
haste  stormfully  across  the  astonished  earth  ;  then 
plunge  again  into  the  inane.  .  .  .  But  whence? 
O  Heaven,  whither  ?  Sense  knows  not.  Faith  knows 
not;  only  that  it  is  through  mystery  to  mystery.'' 
The  encompassing  wall  seems  at  its  highest  when  we 
ask  that  biggest  of  all  questions,  as  to  the  "  why" 
of  things.  Why  sin,  evil,  misery,  with  a  good  God 
above  us  ?  It  is  that  question  which  made  Diderot, 
with  many  another,  an  atheist.  His  argument  is  so 
fatally  familiar  :  "  It  is  either  impotence  or  bad  will 
impotence  if  He  wanted  to  hinder  evil  and  could  not ; 
bad  will  if  He  could  have  hindered  it  and  did  not." 

But  is  there  not  a  way  out  here  ?  Is  not  that  very 
impotence  of  our  reason  of  which  we  have  just  been 
speaking — impotence  to  solve  the  simplest  things — the 
way  out  ?  My  logic  faculty  can  prove  motion  impos- 
sible, and  yet  I  walk.  And  if  in  this  region  "  so  much 
the  worse  for  logic,"  so  must  it  be  in  that  other.  In  al 
the  great  things  our  reason,  taken  by  itself,  fails  us. 
Life  is  deeper  than  our  brain  faculty.  The  soul's 
instincts  are  here  the  better  guide.     The  affirmations 

174 


The  Ideal  and  the  Wall 

of  its  inner  life  scorn  the  contradictions  of  the 
syllogism.  Reason  compels  us  to  go  beyond  reason 
and  gives  sense  to  Tertullian's  paradox,  Credo  quia 
impossibile. 

Life's  mysteries,  properly  taken,  form  a  wonderfu 
spiritual  food.  They  add  enormously  to  the  zest  of 
living.  The  unknown  fascinates,  if  it  sometimes 
appals.  After  all,  it  is  something  to  be  in  so  vast  a 
universe  and  to  be  so  conscious  of  its  vastness. 
And  the  fact  that  our  present  existence  seems  one 
huge  question  is,  in  itself,  a  reason  for  beUeving 
that  we  shall  survive  to  hear  the  answer. 


175 


XVIII 

STIMULANTS 

The  stimulant  is  a  pointer  to  one  of  the  deepest 
of  human  facts.  In  the  thousand  forms  in  which 
it  offers  itself  it  is  the  evidence  always  of  man's 
sense  of  being  incomplete  in  himself.  It  is  a  feature 
in  his  quest  of  the  ideal.  That  is  a  deep  saying  of 
Voltaire's  :  ''  Le  super  flu,  pourtant  chose  si  neces- 
saire."  Man  is  always  in  search  of  **  the  something 
more."  He  is  born  for  marriage;  not  of  the  sexes 
merely,  but  of  himself  to  something  else  ;  of  his  own 
force  to  the  force  outside.  And  so  the  stimulant  is, 
of  itself,  an  entirely  natural,  nay,  a  necessary  thing. 
The  brain  calls  for  it ;  so  do  the  heart  and  the  lungs. 
No  part  of  us  reaches  its  full  equipment  apart  from 
the  outside  touch.  What  new  creatures  we  are  when 
we  breathe  the  brisk  air  of  a  fine  spring  morning  ! 
How  our  mental  forces  leap  to  the  challenge  of  a 
brother  intellect !  It  is  only  the  exaggeration  of  a 
truth  when  Baudelaire  tells  us  that  we  only  reach 
our  proper  self  when  we  are  intoxicated.  Says  he  : 
"  If  you  would  not  be  the  martyred  slaves  of  the 
hour,  intoxicate  yourselves  (enivrez  vous),  do  it  un- 
ceasingly, whether  with  wine  or  poetry  or  virtue." 

One  might  go  deep  into  philosophy  here,  and  point 
out  how  the  stimulant  lies  at  the  very  root  of  things. 

176 


Stimulants 

The  whole  cosmos,  as  we  see  it,  owes  itself  to  that. 
When  science  resolves  the  stars  into  nebulae,  and  the 
nebulae  into  ether,  its  next  inevitable  inquiry  is  as 
to  what  first  set  the  ether  going  ;  what  started  it 
on  that  wondrous  movement  onward  and  upward 
into  an  ordered  universe  ?  It  could  not  start  itself, 
for  inertia  is  the  antithesis  of  movement.  Aristotle 
saw  that  ages  ago,  and  laid  it  down  as  an  axiom  that 
the  original  motion  demanded  a  mover.  And  so 
our  homely  word  leads  us  straight  to  the  most  august 
of  words.  The  stimulant  becomes  our  first  argument 
for  God. 

But  this  is,  perhaps,  beginning  too  high  up.  Let 
us  take  our  theme  on  levels  that  are  nearer  and  more 
familiar.  The  stimulant  suggests  to  the  modern 
mind  first  and  foremost  a  physical  one  ;  generally  an 
artificial  one  ;  too  often  an  entirely  harmful  one.  To 
get  himself  out  of  himself,  or  to  what  seems  above 
himself,  a  man  calls  in  the  strangest  assortment  of 
aids  and  auxiliaries.  The  journalist  of  an  earlier 
generation  wrote  with  a  bottle  of  port  beside  him. 
His  successor  works  in  a  cloud-atmosphere  of  tobacco. 
Coleridge  and  De  Quincey  dreamed  their  mighty 
dreams  with  brains  saturated  with  opium.  Lamb 
seemed  to  talk  best  when  drunk.  It  is  said  of  him 
that  on  one  evening,  when  in  manner,  speech  and 
walk  he  was  obviously  under  the  influence  of  liquor, 
"  he  discoursed  at  length  on  Milton  with  a  fulness  of 
knowledge,  an  eloquence  and  a  profundity  of  critical 
power  which  left  an  impression  never  to  be  effaced." 
The  splendid  talks  of  the  *'  Noctes  Ambrosianae " 
swim  in  whisky.     Pitt,  Fox,  and  Brougham  delivered 

177  M 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

some  of  their  finest  speeches  in  a  state  of  semi- 
intoxication. 

In  that  bygone  time  men  drank  heavily  at  their 
work,  and  still  more  heavily  at  their  play.  Have  our 
readers  ever  read  Dean  Ramsay's  "  Reminiscences  of 
Scottish  Life  "  ?  Of  how  judges  and  barristers  on 
circuit  spent  their  nights;  of  how  at  ducal  feasts 
servants  came  in  at  a  certain  hour  to  unloose  the  neck- 
ties of  guests  under  the  table  and  to  carry  them  to 
bed  ;  of  how  a  party  of  Edinburgh  ladies,  returning 
home  after  a  festive  evening,  mistook  the  shadow  of 
a  church  for  a  river  which  they  had  to  cross,  and 
divested  themselves  of  shoes  and  stockings  in  order 
to  wade  through  it  ?  Good  old  times  indeed  !  We 
are  to-day  a  nation  of  neurotics  because  our  forefathers 
drank  so  desperately  hard. 

Are  we  improving  ?  We  learn  very  slowly.  We  know 
now  that  alcohol  is  a  rank  poison;  that  it  acts  as 
poisons  do  by  stopping  the  proper  action  of  the  tissues 
and  by  a  general  block  in  all  the  hfe  functions  ;  we 
know  Huxley's  view  of  it  as  a  stimulant  for  mental 
work  :  "I  would  just  as  soon  take  a  dose  of  arsenic 
as  I  would  alcohol  under  such  circumstances."  And 
yet  we  are  drinking  it  at  the  rate  of  i6o  millions  sterling 
a  year.  It  is  evident  man  will  never  do  without  his 
physical  stimulant.  It  is  in  his  nature.  But  is  it  not 
time  we  discovered  something  a  little  less  murderous  ? 
What  we  want  is  a  new  education  of  appetite  ;  and 
the  appetite  can  be  trained  to  anything.  If  only  we 
could  get  people  to  appreciate  Nature's  stimulants  : 
the  stir  of  her  fresh  breezes,  the  taste  of  her  fruits, 
the  intoxication  of  her  beauty  !     Nature's  revenge  on 

17S 


Stimulants 

sensualism  is  to  deaden  the  jaded  nerves  to  all  her 
simple  joys,  and  compel  the  wretched  devotee  to  excite- 
ments obtained  at  ruinous  vital  cost. 

We  see  here  how  the  stimulant,  in  its  crudest  physical 
form,  becomes  a  front-rank  question  for  the  nation  and 
the  race.  Not  the  less  is  it  so  when  it  comes  as  an 
appeal  to  the  mind.  You  can  intoxicate  with  other 
things  than  wine.  What  a  stir  to  a  weary  army  is  a 
strain  of  martial  music  !  To  the  horse  under  the 
cavalryman  it  is  more  than  a  spur.  The  African 
savage  with  his  tom-tom,  and  the  band  of  our  House- 
hold Brigade,  rouse  the  same  emotions  by  the  same 
means.  The  soldier  can  do  so  much  more,  dare  so 
much  more,  when  his  senses  are  set  athrill  with  this 
throbbing  sound-poetry.  The  old  Greeks  understood 
this  when  they  made  music  an  essential  element  of 
moral  education.  And  in  this  matter  of  mental 
stimulant  the  Greek  has  another  thing  to  teach  us. 
He  knew  the  value  to  hfe,  the  stimulus  value,  of  the 
festival.  Witness  that  word  of  Pericles  concerning 
feasts  :  "  We  have  not  forgotten  to  provide  for  our 
weary  spirits  many  relaxations  from  toil ;  we  have 
regular  games  and  sacrifices  throughout  the  year ; 
and  the  delight  we  feel  in  all  these  things  helps  us  to 
banish  melancholy."  That,  we  say,  is  a  hint  for  our- 
selves. To-day  our  countryside  is  being  depopulated 
because  of  the  dulness  of  rural  life.  Our  young  people 
swarm  off  to  the  towns,  their  reason,  in  a  multitude  of 
cases,  being  their  distaste  for  the  monotony  of  the 
village,  their  thirst  for  the  stir  and  movement,  the 
stimulus  and  excitements  of  the  town.  How  to 
remedy  this  is  a  subject,  surely,  for  the  best  considera- 

179 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

tion  of  our  local  and  national  leaders.  It  is  not  enough, 
if  we  would  reform  England,  to  send  people  back  to 
the  land.  The  land  must  be  made  attractive  for  them. 
Our  climate,  alas  !  is  not  that  of  Greece.  And  yet 
could  we  not,  if  we  tried,  introduce  among  our  rural 
population  something  that  would  recall  the  grace  and 
beauty  of  the  old  Greek  festival  ?  Where  is  the  village 
band,  the  village  choral  society,  achieving  such  music 
as  you  get  in  rural  Germany  ?  Where  is  the  maypole, 
and  where,  finally,  the  drama  ?  Are  the  achievements 
of  rustic  Ober  Ammergau  impossible  to  our  people  ; 
and  if  so,  why  ?  Access  to  the  land  is  not  our  only 
land  question.  The  countryside  needs  not  only  to 
be  occupied,  but  to  be  intellectualised  ;  to  have  its 
stagnant  life  stirred  and  made  worth  living. 

From  the  physical  stimulant  we  came  to  the 
mental,  and  now  from  the  mental  we  come  to  the 
spiritual.  As  we  survey  the  history  of  religion,  we 
perceive  that  here  also,  not  less  than  in  the  other 
spheres,  the  process  of  life  is  by  a  succession  of 
stimulations.  The  spectacle,  viewed  on  the  broad 
scale,  is  an  inspiring  one.  What  discloses  itself 
is  something  so  much  more  than  the  mere 
human  effort.  Man  works  indeed  at  his  religion, 
and  often  enough  in  petty  and  unedifying  ways. 
But  the  story  of  history  is  of  something  more,  of 
something  behind.  We  are  impressed  with  the  sense 
of  a  power  that  presses  man  onward ;  that,  at  long 
intervals  maybe,  breaks  in  upon  the  normal  develop- 
ment, creating  great  personalities  as  its  instru- 
ments, flooding  the  general  consciousness  with  fresh 
spiritual   forces,    adding   new   elements   to   morality, 

i8o 


Stimulants 

filling  the  soul  with  new  harmonies.  They  come  after 
long  periods  of  seeming  disintegration  and  confusion. 
The  decay  of  one  phase  is  the  preparation  for  another. 
Can  we  imagine  that  what  has  gone  on  through  the 
ages  is  to  be  stopped  or  reversed  now  ;  that  our  ow^n 
distractions  are  anything  else  than  growing-pains; 
that  the  present  seeming  decline  can  be  any  other 
than  the  way  to  a  revival,  different,  it  may  be,  in 
a  hundred  ways  from  any  former  one,  but  marking 
nevertheless,  a  great  spiritual  advance  ?  At  least 
let  us  be  sure  of  this — that  religion  is,  and  always 
has  been,  a  more  than  human  affair.  The  Power  that 
stirred  the  ether  to  its  first  movement  and  gave  to  it 
its  direction  is  still  at  work,  and  will  not  stay  its  hand 
till  the  great  human  programme  is  complete. 

This  is  the  religious  stimulant  on  its  highest  level. 
But  there  are  other  forms  of  it  less  easy  to  characterise. 
Man  has  made  here  all  kinds  of  experiments.  He 
has  found  that  the  religious  feeling  contains  in  it 
some  of  the  most  delectable  sensations,  some  of  the 
most  mysterious  powers,  and  he  has  sought  in  various 
ways  to  reach  them.  The  lash,  the  fast,  the  girdle 
with  sharp-pointed  nails  turned  inward,  of  the  monastic 
cell  were  not  used  simply  as  pain-inflicters.  They 
were  the  way  to  a  deeper  delight ;  the  soul's  stimulant 
on  its  way  to  the  heights.  Men  have  sought  to  leap, 
dance  and  shout  themselves  into  the  religious  rapture. 
We  have  seen  men  do  it  in  a  Dervish  dance  at  Con- 
stantinople. The  African  savage  is  after  the  same  thing 
in  the  wild  contortions  of  his  midnight  orgy.  The 
second-century  Montanist  movement  in  Phrj^gia, 
with    its    frantic    enthusiasms,    was    a    reproduction 

i8i 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

under  other  forms  of  the  earlier  orgiastic  celebrations 
of  that  excitable  race  in  honour  of  Cybele.  We  have  seen 
in  an  EngUsh  religious  assembly  a  man  endeavouring 
by  violent  bodily  movements,  by  shouts  and  cries, 
to  work  himself  up  to  a  condition  of  religious  intoxi- 
cation. The  modern  revival  seems  largely  a  racial 
matter.  It  is  a  wave  of  exalted  feeling,  rushing  like  a 
prairie  fire  over  peoples  of  a  special  susceptibility. 
One  may  say  this  without  disparagement  to  the  high, 
yea,  divine  forces  that  are  found  in  it. 

Its  justification  is  in  its  spontaneity  ;  in  its  aims, 
in  the  gracious  moral  results  that  follow.  But  these 
"  gales  of  the  spirit,"  as  Robert  Hall  fehcitously 
termed  them,  are  not  to  be  imitated.  The  attempts 
to  work  them  up  by  artificial  means,  by  advertise- 
ment, and  by  the  assistance  of  hired  professionals  of 
a  certain  type,  is  to  parody  the  genuine  movement, 
with  results  that  can  only  be  disastrous  to  true  reli- 
gious progress.  Not  that  the  true,  high-souled, 
spiritual  inspirer  is  to  be  restricted  in  his  mission. 
He  will  still  move  hither  and  thither  as  he  is  called, 
as  apostles  have  moved  before  him,  and  with  apostolic 
results.  The  fatal  thing  is  the  substitute  for  that  high 
calling,  where  churches  too  lazy  to  work  out  their  own 
salvation  vary  the  monotony  and  lethargy  of  their 
average  life  by  calling  in  at  intervals  the  highly  paid, 
practised  outsider  to  supply  the  fervour  which  they 
have  ceased  to  feel  themselves.  The  Kingdom  of 
God  does  not  come  by  mechanism. 

We  may  end  with  one  or  two  personal  applications. 
It  is  evident,  from  what  has  been  said,  that  a  large 
part  of  the  conduct  of  life  consists  in  the  choice  and 

182 


Stimulants 

use  of  our  stimulants.  If  we  are  wise,  we  shall  keep 
as  far  as  possible  to  the  simple,  natural  ones,  and 
avoid  the  forced  and  artificial  ones.  Even  of  tobacco, 
that  solace  and  spur  of  the  modern  sage,  we  shall 
do  well  to  have  a  care,  remembering  that  caution 
of  old  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  "  Take  heed,"  says  he, 
in  a  letter  to  his  son,  "  that  tobacco  gayne  not  too 
much  upon  you,  for  the  great  incommodities  that  may 
ensue,  and  the  bewitching  quality  of  it,  which  draws 
a  man  to  partake  more  and  more  the  longer  hee  hath 
taken  it."  The  enrichment  and  strengthening  of 
our  life  comes  from  the  constant  stirring  to  their  fullest 
activity  of  our  inward  powers.  Think,  to  take  a  single 
instance,  what  can  be  done  by  the  imagination  alone. 
Centuries  before  modern  "  faith-healing  "  was  heard 
of  we  have  this  pregnant  word  of  Paracelsus,  quoted 
in  the  Confessio  Fraternitatis  of  the  Rosicrucians  : 
'*  The  power  of  the  imagination  in  medicine  may 
produce  diseases  in  man  and  animals,  and  it  ma}^  cure 
them."  There  is  no  bodily  stimulant  equal  to  hope 
and  happiness,  and  we  can  get  these  by  willing  them. 
The  will  is  our  ultimate  prerogative.  Clear  out  by  its 
effort  your  foggy  humours,  your  dismal  anticipations. 
Fix  your  mind  on  the  best,  and  the  best  will  come. 
Under  the  bright  shining  of  this  inner  sun  your  blood 
will  circulate  ;  every  atom  of  your  system  will  feel 
the  impulse  and  leap  with  fresh  ardour  to  its  task. 
Your  will,  if  you  will  use  it,  is  your  cure-all,  your 
elixir  of  life. 

For  final  word  let  us  point  to  an  inner  stimulant, 
too  much  neglected  in  the  modern  world,  but  whose 
incomparable  value  is  known  to  everyone  who  uses 

183 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

it.  Some  time  ago  a  correspondent  asked  the  present 
writer  whether  in  view  of  the  scientific  arguments  used 
against  it,  he  still  believed  in  prayer.  The  arguments 
are  very  familiar.  So  are  the  arguments  against  the 
possibility  of  motion.  But  solvitur  amhulando.  The 
argument  against  prayer  is  answered  by  the  practice 
of  it.  There  are  manifold  other  and  highest  results 
of  prayer  ;  but  consider  this  one  of  its  effect  as  moral 
stimulant.  Let  a  man  in  the  holy  Presence  to  which 
he  then  appeals,  bring  up  and  renew  his  daily  life  ; 
let  him  mention  there  his  wife,  his  children,  name  by 
name ;  his  business,  the  great  interests  to  which 
he  has  attached  himself  ;  his  neighbours,  the  poor,  the 
needy.  Can  he  do  this  with  sincerity,  in  the  light  of 
the  Love  and  Purity  he  is  addressing,  and  not  find  him- 
self stirred  anew  to  his  duty  as  a  man,  a  citizen,  a 
brother  ?  If  anyone  doubts  it,  let  him  try  the  experi- 
ment. Here  in  his  private  chamber  there  is  no 
show  of  religion  ;  no  room  for  pretence,  for  posturing. 
There  is  room  only  for  realities  ;  for  the  outgo  from 
a  man's  soul  of  its  loftiest  aspirations  ;  for  the  inflow 
upon  him  of  ineffable  answers. 


184 


XIX 

THE    ESTATE    AND    THE    IDEAL 

In  the  din  of  political  conflict  we  are  apt  to  narrow 
our  view.  We  stand  on  tip-toe  for  results,  as  if  the 
whole  world  depended  on  ballot-boxes.  And  in  these 
days  assuredly  much  is  done  by  the  ballot-box. 
Politics  become  an  ever  wider  and  ever  graver  issue. 
At  such  a  time  it  is  well,  however,  to  remember  how 
much  more  there  is  in  life  than  can  be  here  decided  ; 
how  vaster  is  the  horizon  than  the  piece  of  it  visible 
from  the  election  standpoint.  Infinitely  greater  than 
any  contest  of  the  hour  is  the  eternal  challenge  of 
existence.  Whatever  has  happened  to  your  party, 
there  is  left  something  so  much  beyond — the  fact 
of  yoti  and  your  world.  As  a  refreshment  in  the  tur- 
moil of  battle,  a  refuge  from  the  "  windy  storm  and 
tempest "  of  the  hour,  let  us  bethink  ourselves  of 
this  vaster  interest;  let  us  broaden  ourselves  by  its 
immensity,  be  heartened  by  the  promise  it  gives. 

The  modern  struggle,  w^e  are  often  told,  is  between 
the  "  haves  "  and  the  "  have  nots,"  But  here  we  are 
going  to  reckon  ourselves  all  in  among  the  "  haves." 
There  are  differences  enough  among  us,  heaven  knows  ; 
differences  of  bank  accounts,  of  position,  faculty, 
opportunity.     But   there    is   something    we    have   in 

185 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

common  that  outweighs  them  all.  The  duke's  estate, 
magnificent  as  it  seems,  is  a  trifle  compared  with  the 
human  estate  which  you  share  with  him.  'Tis  a  very 
old  estate,  this  which  you  and  I  inherit,  and  bears 
every  evidence  of  having  been  carefully  prepared. 
Have  you  ever  looked  into  the  details  of  this  prepara- 
tion ?  The  old  "  design  argument "  has  of  late 
years  been  assailed  from  various  sides,  but  its  main 
contention  has  really  not  been  touched. 

Take,  to  begin  with,  the  place  of  our  planet  in  the 
universe  where  it  finds  itself.  Dr.  Russel  Wallace 
published  a  book  some  years  ago  on  "  Man's  Place  in 
the  Universe,"  in  which  he  argued  that  our  solar 
system  was  in  or  near  the  centre  of  the  visible  universe, 
and  that  the  evidence  pointed  to  our  earth  as  the  one 
place  in  it  adapted  for  the  residence  of  rational  beings 
such  as  ourselves.  The  idea  was  vigorously  com- 
bated by  other  scientists,  and  is,  perhaps,  in  the 
extreme  form  in  which  he  put  it,  untenable,  or  at  least 
unproveable.  But,  without  going  his  length,  note 
some  of  the  things  which  belong  to  this  habitation  of 
ours.  So  far  as  the  solar  system  is  concerned,  we 
appear  to  be  the  one  planet  in  it  capable  of  sustaining 
life.  And  what  a  marvellous  balancing  of  things  ; 
what  a  minute  calculation  seems  to  have  been  employed 
in  the  forces,  and  the  Hmitation  of  forces,  that  have 
gone  to  making  it  a  possible  world  for  us  ! 

Consider,  for  instance,  that  little  matter  of  the 
position  of  our  planet  in  relation  to  its  orbit.  The  earth 
as  it  races  round  the  sun  does  not  stand  upright ;  it 
leans  over  at  an  angle  of  23 J  degrees  to  the  plane  of 
the  orbit.    An  odd  arrangement  surely,  but  it  is  to  that 

186 


The  Estate  and  the   Ideal 

we  owe  the  glorious  march  of  the  seasons,  the  splen- 
didly varied  programme  of  Spring,  Summer,  Autumn 
and  Winter.  Had  the  axis  been  perpendicular  to  the 
orbit,  we  should  have  had  equal  day  and  night  all  the 
year  round,  and  no  seasons  at  all.  Was  that,  one  asks, 
a  chance  affair  ?  Think,  too,  of  that  other  Httle  pro- 
vision, our  water  supply.  The  water  which  fills  our 
ocean-beds  and  from  them  is  distributed  over  the 
earth  is  a  combination  on  the  vastest  scale  of  the  two 
gases  oxygen  and  hj'drogen.  But  observe  how  the 
quantity  has  been  calculated.  Had  the  mass  been 
increased  by  as  much  as  one-tenth,  there  would  have 
been  no  dry  land  at  all.  The  whole  surface  would 
have  been  submerged.  And  speaking  of  water,  how 
comes  it  about  that  we  have  that  extraordinary  rever- 
sion of  its  law  of  expansion  under  heat  and  contraction 
under  cold  which  takes  place  in  the  act  of  freezing  ? 
At  the  freezing  point  this  law  is  reversed,  and  instead 
of  a  great  contraction  we  have  a  great  expansion,  so 
that  the  ice,  instead  of  sinking  to  the  bottom,  floats 
on  the  top.  Had  it  been  otherwise,  we  should  have 
had  a  frozen-up  ocean  and  a  frozen-up  world  !  We 
are  now  discovering  that  what  seemed  the  useless  and 
hurtful  things  in  Nature  are  really  amongst  the  most 
valuable  elements  of  our  heritage.  We  have  been 
accustomed  to  think  of  dust  as  a  nuisance.  We  wonder 
what  is  the  use  of  the  illimitable  sandy  wastes  of  Sahara 
deserts.  We  now  know  that  the  dust  particles  flung 
into  the  atmosphere  from  the  world's  deserts  and  from 
its  volcanic  outbursts  are  vital  to  the  human  welfare. 
Without  these  dust  particles  we  should  have  no  rain, 
for  one  thing  ;    and  for  another,  we  should  have  no 

187 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

blue  in  our  sky.  We  should  look,  even  at  noonday, 
at  a  dome  of  ebon  blackness  ! 

But  this  is  an  endless  theme.  One  would  have  to 
write  a  literature  instead  of  a  chapter  to  set  forth  in 
any  adequate  way  the  preparation  of  this  estate  of 
ours  for  our  entrance  on  it.  It  has  all  been  done  for  us 
and  not  by  us.  The  labours  of  all  the  generations  of 
man  could  not  add  to  the  earth  one  ounce  of  its  weight ; 
could  not  supply  it  with  a  single  element,  a  single  force 
that  was  not  already  there.  Without  our  aid  it  has 
been  shaped,  warmed,  lighted,  suppHed  with  fuel,  with 
water,  with  all  the  elements,  all  the  enduring  qualities 
of  things.  And  always  new  treasures  are  being  dis- 
closed. The  estate  shows  itself  as  ever  richer  the  more 
it  is  explored.  Forces  our  fathers  never  dreamed  of 
reveal  themselves,  waiting  to  be  yoked  to  our  service. 
Higher  wants  find  instantly  the  higher  responses. 
Man  fits  himself  into  his  world  as  a  key  into  the  lock. 

But  this  possible  realm  of  things,  wonderful  as  it  is, 
does  not  bound  our  heritage.  Our  greatest  possession 
is  in  ourselves.  Consider  the  marvel  of  your  per- 
sonality. Over  against  the  measureless  universe  here 
stand  you  who  look  at  it.  And  you  are  more  than 
it  all ;  for  it  is  only  in  you,  as  a  part  of  conscious 
being,  that  it  really  exists.  Apart  from  mind,  that 
realises  existence,  there  would  be  no  existence.  All 
the  laws  that  govern  outside  Nature  come  to  a  full 
stop  when  they  reach  the  boundary  of  your  mind. 
The  mind  that  knows  the  world  stands  itself  outside 
the  world.  None  of  the  terms  that  fit  the  one  will  fit 
the  other.  The  idea  of  Mont  Blanc  in  your  mind 
occupies  no  space  comparable  to  Mont  Blanc.      You 

i88 


The   Estate  and   the   Ideal 

cannot  imagine  a  blue  thought  or  a  square  emotion. 
The  physicist  carries  his  researches  very  close  to  your 
mind.  He  can  measure  the  brain  ;  trace  its  con- 
volutions, show  its  working  as  an  organ  of  thought. 
He  can  calculate  how  many  vibrations  of  the  atmo- 
sphere go  to  the  production  of  a  given  note  on  the 
musical  scale ;  how  many  millions  of  millions  of 
vibrations  of  the  ether  are  concerned  in  obtaining  a 
given  shade  of  colour  in  the  spectrum.  But  how  far 
has  he  got  with  his  problem  ?  These,  it  is  true,  are 
the  concomitants  of  sensation,  but  a  whole  universe 
of  difference  lies  between  them  and  the  sensation 
itself.  It  is  not  by  arithmetic  we  describe  the  rapture 
with  which  we  view  the  colours  of  an  Alpine  sunrise. 
No  theory  of  vibrations  touches  that  inner  world  where 
we  kindle  at  the  beauty  of  a  spring  morning,  enter  into 
the  logic  of  a  great  argument,  taste  the  aesthetic  joy  of 
noble  music.  Here  are  we  in  the  region  of  our  true 
heritage,  the  heritage  of  the  spirit. 

The  outside  world  exists  for  this  inside  world.  All 
the  real  values  of  life  are  inside  values.  Nature  has 
no  meaning  except  for  the  mind  that  gives  it  a  meaning. 
In  the  seeming  iron  ring  of  necessity,  in  the  midst  of 
the  endless  chain  of  causes,  you,  the  central  you,  stand 
outside  it  all,  observing  it,  enjoying  it,  but  belonging 
to  another  order,  another  sphere  of  things. 

But  you,  standing  in  your  spirithood,  in  the  world 
yet  not  of  the  world,  are  not  alone  in  this.  You  are 
one  of  a  great  company  of  other  spirits,  around  you  and 
behind  you.  The  realm  of  mind  to  which  you  belong 
is  as  vast  as  the  realm  of  matter.  Your  inner  feeling, 
unnoted    by  Nature,    is  responded  to    by  the  inner 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

feeling  of  your  neighbour.  It  depends,  indeed,  on  that. 
Your  music  would  be  mute  were  it  not  for  his  awaken- 
ing touch.  You  would  know  no  love,  no  sympathy, 
were  there  no  companion  minds  that  love  and  sym- 
pathise. The  words  you  use  are  all  an  inheritance 
from  other  minds.  There  is  no  harmony  till  your  voice 
is  matched  with  other  voices.  This  communion  of 
minds  has  given  you  a  literature,  a  faith,  a  knowledge, 
which  no  exertions  of  your  own  could  compass.  The 
simplest  word  you  utter,  in  the  most  trivial  conversa- 
tion, would  have  been  impossible  but  for  the  travail 
of  intelligences  that  thought  and  felt  ages  before  you 
were  born.  Your  religious  hopes  and  aspirations  are 
a  heritage  from  souls  you  never  met,  but  whose  labour 
and  inner  sweat  opened  the  way  upward  on  which  you 
now  travel. 

Here,  then,  is  our  common  heritage,  your  estate, 
not  as  a  duke  or  a  privileged  person,  but  as  a  human 
being.  In  presence  of  it,  how  small  indeed  are  the 
distinctions  of  which  we  are  apt  to  make  so  much  I 
Cut  off  from  your  duke  that  which  he  possesses  in 
common  with  you,  and  how  much  of  him  is  left  ? 
The  vital  points  for  him  are,  after  all,  not  the  straw- 
berry-leaves, but  the  fact  that  he  has  two  eyes  in  his 
head  and  two  ears  ;  that  he  sleeps  at  night  and  wakes 
in  the  morning  ;  that  the  sun  warms  him  and  food 
nourishes  him  and  water  cleanses  him  ;  that  he  has 
his  four  limbs  and  can  use  them  ;  that  his  heart 
beats  and  his  lungs  respire  ;  that  he  can  speak  and 
think  and  remember ;  that  alongside  of  him  are 
fellow-beings  with  whom  he  can  exchange  ideas  and 
form    connections ;     that    he    has    hopes,    activities, 

190 


The   Estate   and   the   Ideal 

aspirations  ;  that  he  can  love  and  be  loved.  Take 
away  any  one  of  these  things,  we  say,  and  what  would 
his  dukedom  be  worth  ?  The  real  lordship  is  the 
human  lordship.  "  Give  me  health  and  a  day," 
cries  republican  Emerson,  "and  I  will  make  the  pomp 
of  emperors  ridiculous." 

But  while  all  this  is  true,  there  is  something  else 
true.  The  very  terms  we  have  just  been  using  raise 
an  immense  and  pressing  question.  We  have  spoken 
of  the  common  heritage,  but  we  have  now  to  ask,  how 
far  does  the  existing  condition  of  the  w^orld  permit 
humanity  to  enjoy  this  heritage  ?  We  come  here 
upon  an  extraordinary  and  anomalous  spectacle. 
We  all,  duke  or  no  duke,  derive  our  life  values  from 
our  participation  in  the  common  humanity.  But  a 
state  of  things  has  arisen,  the  result  of  long  ages  of 
violence  and  of  an  undeveloped  moral  sense,  which 
amounts  to  an  invasion  and  a  spoliation  of  the  common 
stock ;  a  cutting  out  and  appropriation  of  huge 
slices  of  the  estate  in  the  interests  of  a  few  and  at  the 
expense  of  the  many.  In  this  business  it  has  been 
forgotten  that  the  true  interests  of  one  man  are,  in 
the  long  run,  always  the  true  interests  of  his  neighbour ; 
that  there  is  no  real  prosperity  which  is  not  a  shared 
prosperity.  The  spoliators  have  forgotten  that  the 
heritage  is  man's,  and  have  made  it  the  heritage  of 
some  men,  chiefly  themselves.  Thus  there  have  been 
civilisations  founded  on  slavery,  where  the  ease  of  one 
class  was  secured  by  the  ceaseless,  unpaid  toil  and 
suffering  of  a  much  larger  class.  So  slow  has  man 
been  in  his  spiritual  evolution  that  it  is  only  to-day 
we  are  seriously  asking  whether,  as  Professor  Marshall 

191 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

in  his  "  Principles  of  Economics  "  puts  it,  **  it  is 
necessary  that  there  should  be  any  so-called  '  lower 
classes  '  at  all ;  that  is,  whether  there  need  be  large 
numbers  of  people  doomed  from  their  birth  to  hard 
work  in  order  to  provide  for  others  the  requisites 
of  a  refined  and  cultured  life,  while  they  themselves 
are  prevented  by  their  poverty  and  toil  from  having 
any  share  or  part  in  that  life  ? 

So  slow  are  we  in  these  matters  that  we  have  seen 
in  our  day  a  philosophy  preached  throughout  Europe 
which  is  the  direct  negation  of  all  this  ;  which  afhrms, 
in  the  words  of  its  apostle  Nietzsche,  that  "  a  people 
is  a  roundabout  way  by  which  Nature  arrives  at 
six  or  seven  great  men."  The  assertion  would  do 
well  enough  if  it  were  not  divorced  from  its  proper 
corollary — that  the  six  or  seven  great  men  are  pro- 
duced not  for  their  own  sake,  but  for  that  of  the 
people.  Nature's  aristocrats  are  the  assertion  of  her 
essential  democracy.  Their  gifts,  whether  of  arts  or 
science,  or  invention,  or  government,  are,  by  the 
very  law  of  things,  absorbed  at  once  into  the  service 
of  the  people,  become  a  new  asset  of  the  common 
heritage. 

What  is  coming,  helped  by  a  thousand  working 
forces ;  by  the  growing  intelHgence,  the  growing 
moral  sense,  by  the  discoveries  of  science,  by  the 
developments  of  industry — what  is  coming  is  the 
advent  of  a  time  when  humanity  as  such  will  be 
the  great  possessor;  when  every  human  being  will 
have  his  place  on  the  earth,  not  a  cramped  and  over- 
crowded place,  but  one  with  room  in  it  for  the 
expansion  to  its  full  height  of  all  that  is  in  him; 

192 


The  Estate  and  the   Ideal 

when  every  man  will  have  his  heritage  of  labour,  the 
joy  of  putting  his  energies  into  fruitful  work;  when 
that  labour,  in  addition  to  its  own  joy,  will  earn  for 
him  the  bliss  of  leisure,  the  means  of  self -improvement, 
the  honour  and  esteem  of  his  fellows ;  when  no  class 
will  be  shut  out  from  its  enjoyment  to  the  full  of  the 
inheritance  it  has  been  born  into.  Many  forces,  we 
say,  will  combine  to  this  result,  but  the  chiefest  of 
them  will  be  the  continuous  development  of  the 
spiritual  sense,  of  that  religion  of  the  heart,  the 
personal  precept  of  which  is  the  love  of  God  and  of  our 
neighbour.  Without  this  spiritual  growth  a  merely 
temporal  prosperity  would  be  the  ghastliest  of  failures. 
For  it  is  only  in  the  recognition  of  himself  as  a  spiritual 
being  that  man  can  arrive  at  his  true  wealth  ;  then 
only  does  he  enjoy  this  world  when  he  finds  himself 
above  and  beyond  it;  then  only  does  he  reach  his 
ultimate  height  when  he  finds  himself  united  by 
intimate  personal  ties  to  that  unseen  but  gracious 
Power  that  guides  the  universe,  and  is  revealed  in 
the  soul ;  to  the  God  who  made  the  world  for  man's 
habitation,  but  who  is  Himself  his  only  and  final  rest. 


193 


XX 

LIFE  AS   TRANSFORMATION 

Ours  is  a  magical  world.  All  the  fairy  tales,  all 
the  wonder  stories  that  ever  were  told,  are  as  nothing 
compared  with  the  reality.  And  the  chief  marvel 
of  Hfe  is  in  its  transformations.  Evolution,  as  we 
have  hitherto  studied  it,  is  only  a  phase  of  a  deeper 
business.  It  is  wonderful  enough  to  think  of  our- 
selves as  developed  out  of  a  multitude  of  inferior 
forms  ;  to  find  the  unborn  child,  through  the  ante- 
natal period,  reproducing  one  after  the  other  the 
ascending  stages  of  animal  life  till  it  reaches  the 
human.  But  that  is  only  one  out  of  a  thousand  lines 
of  transmutation.  It  is  only  part  of  the  stupendous 
fact  which  is  now  filling  the  scientific  imagination-, 
that  everything  in  the  universe  seems  capable  of 
changing  into  everything  else.  The  old  alchemists, 
with  their  doctrine  of  the  convertibility  of  metals, 
had  a  gUmpse  of  this  truth  ;  where  they  bungled 
was  in  their  attempts  at  its  application.  The  world- 
mind  is  older  now  and  better  equipped.  It  has  not 
yet  made  gold,  but  seems  on  the  way  to  it.  We  can 
turn  a  gas  into  a  Hquid.  We  can  convert  motion  into 
heat,  into  light,  into  electricity.  In  electricity, 
indeed,  we  convert  matter  into  something  which  is 
not  matter,  according,  at  least,  to  all  previous  defini- 

194 


Life   as  Transformation 

tions  of  it.  Analysis  is,  in  fact,  bringing  back  all  the 
substances  we  know  into  the  unity  of  an  imponder- 
able ether,  out  of  which  they  have  all  emerged  and  to 
which  they  tend  to  return. 

The  eternal  movement  of  this  into  other  ;  the 
fact  that  everything  we  look  upon  and  deal  with  has 
in  it  the  seed  of  something  else,  when  looked  into  and 
thoroughly  grasped,  will  be  seen  to  carry  momentous 
consequences.  And  these  are  not  merely  scientific, 
they  touch  intimately  upon  religion,  upon  morality 
and  the  conduct  of  life.  In  proportion  as  the  idea 
is  understood,  theology  and  poUtics  will  take  on  new 
aspects.  It  will  become,  in  these  and  other  depart- 
ments, the  master  light  of  all  our  seeing.  Let  us 
glance  here  along  some  of  the  directions  upon  which 
this  view  opens. 

Note  for  instance — and  this  is  introduction  to 
much  that  follows — the  way  in  which  outward  condi- 
tions translate  themselves  into  states  of  the  soul. 
We  can  never  get  over  the  antinomy  between  body 
and  spirit.  We  can  never  tell  by  what  process  vibra- 
tions of  the  atmosphere  or  the  ether,  calculable  by 
arithmetic,  translate  themselves  into  sound  or  into 
sight.  But  the  process  is  continually  going  on. 
Everything  outside  us  turns  in  some  mysterious  way 
into  a  something  inside  us,  creates  changes  in  our 
consciousness,  becoming  part  of  our  inmost  life. 
The  soul  sits  at  its  ports  of  entry,  taking  in  its  cargoes 
from  the  material  world.  And  what  men  have  yet 
to  learn  is  the  art  of  studying  the  cargo  in  the  light 
of  what  it  inwardly  produces  ;  of  how  the  exterior 
works  upon  the  interior.     Life's  supreme  lesson,  we 

195 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

say,  is  in  the  art  of  producing  the  best  inward  and 
spiritual  states,  and  of  how  to  manage  our  outward 
with  a  view  to  that  result.  The  question  is  not  merely, 
"  What  is  this  thing  in  itself  ?  "  but  "  What  will  it  turn 
into  inside  me  ?  "  More  than  what  it  is  now  is  the 
matter  of  its  transformations,  of  what  it  will  by- 
and-by  become. 

When  with  this  in  our  mind  we  turn  our  eye  upon 
modern  civilisation  we  are  struck  with  a  sense  of 
its  appalling  irrationality.  One  might  suppose  it  a 
clever  contrivance  for  depressing  and  crushing  out 
instead  of  developing,  that  inner  man  whose  perfecting 
is  the  only  goal  worth  trying  for.  We  have  not  found 
out  yet,  it  would  appear,  that  for  a  virile,  joyous  inner 
life  a  man  requires  a  healthy  body  ;  and  that  for  a 
healthy  body  he  must  stand  in  wholesome  physical 
conditions  ;  with  fresh  air  to  breathe,  and  wholesome 
work  to  do.  Consider  the  way  in  which  our  English 
population  is  distributed,  and  how  it  is  occupied. 
Our  operative  class  is  for  the  most  part  crowded  into 
unwholesome  cities,  toiling  by  day  in  close-shut 
factories,  and  spending  the  night  in  still  stuffier  hovel- 
chambers,  with  no  breath  of  the  open  upon  them 
during  the  twenty-four  hours.  Under  this  n^gime 
they  are  dwindling  before  our  eyes.  Compare  the 
height  and  chest  measurement  of  the  Lancashire  mill- 
hand  and  of  the  London  slum-dweller  with  that  of 
the  Highlander  or  the  Swiss  mountaineer  !  Compare 
them  with  the  EngUsh  gamekeeper  whom  Jefferies 
describes  :  "In  brief,  freedom  and  constant  contact 
with  Nature  have  made  him  every  inch  a  man  ;  and 
here,  in  this  nineteenth  century  of  civilised  effeminacy, 

196 


Life   as  Transformation 

may  be  seen  some  relic  of  what  men  were  in  the  old 
feudal  days  when  they^dwelt  practically  in  the  woods/' 

Above  the  operative  is  our  middJe  class,  engaged 
in  a  mad  rush  for  wealth,  and  for  the  luxuries  which 
wealth  brings.  And  crowning  the  social  edifice  we 
have  the  aristocracy,  immersed  yet  deeper  in  these 
luxuries,  and  that  without  working  for  them.  There 
are  those  who  say  that  this  is  the  inevitable  result  of 
history,  and  of  the  evolution  of  Hfe.  Let  it  stand  at 
that  ;  but  we  have  to  add  that  the  evolution  of  Hfe 
is  not  over.  And  what  is  about  to  operate  on  it  in 
effective  and  startling  ways  is  the  new  knowledge  we  are 
acquiring  of  the  true  Hfe  conditions.  The  science  of 
the  best  life  is  here,  and  is  offering  its  questions.  In 
the  sphere  of  industry  it  asks  not  only  what  quantity 
and  quality  of  cottons  and  woollens  we  are  producing, 
but  what  sort  of  men  ?  And  in  the  matter  of  riches  and 
luxuries  its  query  is  as  to  what  they  turn  into  as 
factors  in  man's  inner  happiness  and  well-being.  How 
does  the  present  distribution  of  them  tell  on  the 
general  sum  of  manhood,  of  moral  progress  ?  Is  it 
possible  for  an  idle  man  to  be  a  good  man  ;  for  a 
social  position  which  induces  idleness  and  indulgence 
to  be  other  than  a  misery  to  the  individual  and  a 
menace  to  the  community  ?  It  will  be  when  we  have 
reached  the  habit  of  translating  economic  values  into 
inner  and  spiritual  values  that  the  new  social  state  will 
arrive.  The  state  will  then  have  a  new  programme. 
It  will  be  that  of  "the  organisation  of  the  best  life." 

But  this  idea  of  Hfe  as  transformation — of  one  thing 
passing  into  another,  of  the  outer  changing  into  inner — 
goes  deeper  than  any  question  of  State  adjustment, 

197 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

increasingly  operative  and  powerful  as  that  is  destined 
to  be.  It  is  when  we  approach  the  directly  spiritual 
sphere  that  our  theme  becomes  most  vitally  significant. 
Theology  has  not  yet  realised  all  that  it  means,  the 
new  way  it  proposes  of  answering  some  of  its  most 
difficult  problems.  Apart  from  controversy,  and 
looking  at  the  sheer  facts,  how  wonderful  is  the  spec- 
tacle which  the  history  of  reHgion  offers  !  It  is  one  of 
perpetual  transmutation.  It  exhibits  changes  as 
startUng  as  the  dreams  of  the  old  alchemists,  as  the 
triumphs  of  modern  chemistry.  It  shows  us,  for  one 
thing,  how  evil  becomes  a  root  of  good  ;  how  the  one 
transmutes  itself  into  the  other.  That  is  not  to  say 
that  evil  is  good  ;  that  there  is  no  difference  between 
them.  But  observe  how  things  happen  in  the  material 
world.  We  know  our  sun  as  a  hell  of  fire,  a  scene  of 
things  which  to  sentient  beings  like  ourselves  would 
be  one  of  unbearable  horror.  But  not  the  less  is  it 
that  this  inferno  of  raging  heat  is  the  direct  producer 
of  our  bright  days,  of  our  green  fields,  of  all  the  beauty 
of  the  earth.  The  one  has  passed  into,  has  become 
the  other. 

Christianity  is  rooted  in  a  similar  transmutation. 
The  Crucifixion,  its  eye  and  centre,  is  the  story  of  an 
enormous  evil  turned  into  an  unparalleled  good. 
When  we  read  the  bare  facts  as  they  took  place  on  the 
Judaean  hill  we  are  in  contact  with  all  that  is  dark  and 
dolorous.  On  the  one  side  there  is  a  disciple's  treachery, 
the  malice  of  a  priesthood,  the  cynical  indifference  of  a 
Roman  governor,  the  trained  brutality  of  soldiers,  the 
derision  of  a  mob.  On  the  other  the  bodily  anguish  of 
an  innocent  sufferer,  and  a  darkness  of  soul  that  over- 


Life  as  Transformation 

bore  the  physical  pain.  The  hour  passes,  the  deed  is 
done.  Yet  not  done.  As  we  watch  we  see  it  change. 
It  takes  on  new  outHnes,  opens  from  its  dread  interior 
new  strange  qualities  and  forces.  The  death  becomes 
a  power  of  life.  It  enters  into  men's  souls  as  a  divine 
secret  of  salvation.  Communities  arise  which  carry  this 
death  as  their  emblem.  The'Golgotha  cross  becomes  a 
talisman,  the  theme  of  preaching,  the  basis  of  theology, 
the  centre  of  passionate  devotion,  the  spring  of  hope 
and  peace  in  countless  souls.  Here  again  we  say  the 
sun  which  burns  as  hell  works  as  the  power  of  heaven. 

We  have  spoken  here  of  the  theologies  of  the  cross. 
They  have  been  many,  and  some  of  them  are  curious 
reading.  The  attempt  to  convert  that  divine  Passion 
into  dialectics  has  been  mainly  an  unhappy  one.  In 
the  ages  that  have  followed  the  best  interpretation 
has  always  been  that  of  simple  hearts  that  have  looked 
upon  this  great  sorrow,  and  let  its  unspoken  message 
fall  straight  into  the  soul.  But  when  all  the  contro- 
versies that  have  arisen  are  over ;  when  this  dogmatic 
position  after  the  other  has  been  given  up  ;  there  will 
remain,  not  as  a  dogma  but  as  an  impregnable  historic 
fact,  that  human  evil,  as  here  exhibited  in  its  darkest, 
deadUest  form,  has  no  permanence  as  evil,  has  no 
supremacy,  far  less  eternity  of  being,  but  exists  as 
the  instrument  of  the  conquering  and  final  good. 

There  is  another  side  of  Christianity  which  our 
doctrine  of  transformation  powerfully  affects.  As  a 
religion  Christianity  stands  out  from  other  faiths  by 
its  fearless  exposition  of  conversion  ;  of  the  possible 
change  of  a  man's  inner  forces  by  union  with 
another   force.      Its   programme  is  nothing  less  than 

J99 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

that  of  the  development  of  a  new  humanity;  of  a 
spiritual  chemistry,  which  changes  our  primitive 
elements  by  a  mystical  contact ;  the  emergence  from 
the  old  Adam  of  "  a  new  creature."  In  times  of 
religious  decadence  the  doctrine  is  apt  to  be  obscured ; 
kept  in  the  background  as  though  it  were  a  vulgarity, 
something  to  be  ashamed  of.  A  virile  Church  will 
keep  it  at  the  forefront.  For  it  is  a  true  doctrine, 
and  a  vital.  It  can  be  stated  in  scientific  terms. 
It  has  all  analogy  on  its  side.  When  we  realise  that 
everything  in  the  world  is  here  to  be  changed,  to 
undergo  unions,  absorptions,  distillations,  and  thereby 
to  be  lifted  to  higher  levels,  conversion  will  become 
to  us  not  only  the  highest  but  the  most  natural  of 
facts.  The  operation  here  may  have  infinite  variety — 
here  a  sudden  convulsion  of  the  soul  which  the  psycho- 
logist labours  to  explain,  there  a  process  as  gentle  as 
the  settling  of  dew  upon  a  flower ;  but  the  broad  result 
is  the  same.  It  is  the  wedding  of  the  soul's  Hfe  with 
another  higher  hfe  which  is  sought  and  for  which 
it  was  made.  One  witnesses  here  a  transmutation  of 
quaUties  ;  a  man's  fighting  instincts,  his  capacity, 
his  courage,  his  very  dourness  and  wrath  take  on 
fresh  forms  and  work  in  new  directions  ;  his  loves, 
his  affections,  are  touched  to  new  issues.  The  Church 
of  the  future  will  build  itself  on  the  chemistry  of  souls. 
There  is  yet  another  aspect  of  transformation  in 
relation  to  religion.  As  we  look  over  the  history  of 
the  Church  we  find  it  one  of  perpetual  change.  The 
doctrines,  the  institutions,  the  disciplines,  the  general 
outlook  of  one  century,  are  not  those  of  another. 
Semper  eadem  is  the  vainest  of  words.     We  are  to-day 

200 


Life   as  Transformation 

in  the  midst  of  one  of  the  vastest  of  these  movements. 
It  is  singular  to  hear  the  language  of  regret,  sometimes 
of  despair,  with  which  men  greet  these  transitions  ; 
to  hear  them  bewail  the  fickleness,  the  lack  of  stability, 
that  mark  their  epoch.  A  little  insight  should  cure 
them  of  these  tremors.  Things  change  because  it  is 
their  nature  to  change.  We  shall  want  a  new  universe 
if  we  desire  either  an  unmoving  institution  or  an  un- 
moving  theology.  We  shall  never  get  them  as  long 
as  the  human  heart  keeps  beating,  as  long  as  the 
human  brain  keeps  thinking.  As  surely  as  nebulae  turn 
into  stars,  and  as  acorns  grow  into  oaks,  so  will  our 
systems  pass  from  form  to  form.  When  they  cease  to 
change  they  cease  to  live.  Do  we  suppose  our  Chris- 
tianity will  be  what  it  is  now  ten  thousand  years 
hence  ?  Sufficient  for  us  to  know  that  the  inevitable 
movement  here  will  be  a  divinely  ordered  one,  leading 
ever  nearer  to  the  light. 

There  is  a  side  of  this  subject  which  we  cannot  here 
enter  upon,  the  transformations,  namely,  which  are 
from  the  upper  to  the  lower  ;  such  as  when  the  words 
of  a  great  teacher,  falling  upon  undeveloped  souls, 
are  there  misinterpreted  and  robbed  of  their  true 
significance  ;  of  movements  begun  at  the  height  of 
some  noble  personality,  and  then,  in  inferior  hands, 
degenerating  into  instruments  of  worldly  pohcy ; 
of  a  spiritual  religion  debased  to  a  materialism  such 
as  we  see  in  the  Roman  mass.  History  is  full  of  this, 
and  we  have  to  take  account  of  it.  Reaction  is  the 
price  of  high  action.  The  incoming  tide  drops  back 
from  its  foremost  wave.  But  the  ultimate  movement 
is   onward.     Our   world,    which   began    in    fire-mist, 

201 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

has  never  stopped  in  its  development ;  and  if  its 
physical  substance  be  ultimately  dissolved,  that  will 
in  no  wise  destroy  the  spiritual  work  that  has  been 
wrought  there.  It  will  be  only  its  transmutation 
to  a  higher  form.  For  in  all  this  scene  of  transition 
our  hope  rests  steadfast  in  Him,  the  eternal  Mover, 
whose  ways  are  from  everlasting,  who,  changing  all 
things,  is  Himself  unchanged ;  whose  throne,  like 
steadfast  rock  in  stormy  seas,  abideth  for  ever. 


202 


XXI 

THE  IDEAL  AS  INDEPENDENCE 

We  are  all  enthusiasts  for  independence.  For  the 
mass  of  people  the  word  stands  for  all  that  is  best  in 
life.  Robert  Burns  finds  here  the  true  value  of  money. 
It  is  that  he  may  have  the  bliss  "  o'  being  independent." 
Says  Pope  to  the  like  effect : 

Give  me,  I  cried,  enough  for  me. 
My  bread  and  independency. 

Dependence,  the  opposite  condition,  is  figured  as  an 
epitome  of  all  the  sorrows.  How  we  rejoice  with 
Johnson  when  his  annuity  of  £300  a  year  delivers  him 
from  his  drudgery  to  the  booksellers  ;  from  waiting 
in  the  ante-chambers  of  my  Lord  Chesterfield  and  the 
whole  race  of  patrons.  We  sympathise  with  Lamb, 
too,  in  his  apostrophe  :  "  O  money,  money,  thou  art 
health  and  Hberty  and  strength  ;  and  he  that  has  thee 
may  rattle  his  pockets  at  the  devil  !  "  To  achieve 
independence  the  middle-class  man  toils  day  by  day 
at  his  office  ;  while  across  the  yard  his  workmen  in  the 
factory  combine,  form  unions,  to  obtain  their  share  of 
the  same  boon.  The  labourer  dreams  of  his  three  acres, 
of  being  his  own  master  on  his  own  holding.  It  is  the 
same  in  all  the  spheres  of  Hfe.  Men  want  to  be  free  of 
the  things  that  cramp  and  hold  them.  The  artist 
longs  to  strike  out  some  new  line  ;    the  thinker,  the 

203 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

writer,  the  preacher,  aims  to  be  original,  to  be  rid  of 
enthralling  conventions. 

And  the  desire  is  unquestionably  a  good  one.  It  is 
a  characteristic  of  the  stronger  races.  To  the  struggle 
for  independence  we  owe  most  of  what  has  been 
achieved  in  modern  civiUsation.  Nature  invites  us 
to  enter  on  the  struggle,  and  has  endowed  us  with  the 
faculties  for  it.  But  as  we  engage  in  it,  and  especially 
when,  as  beginners,  we  are  entering  upon  it,  it  is 
essential  that  we  should  know  the  rules  of  the  game  ; 
what  can  be  won,  and  what  is  beyond  our  power. 

First  of  all  we  have  to  learn  our  limitations.  The 
game  is  Uke  chess  ;  we  find  all  the  pieces  already  on 
the  board,  their  powers  defined,  and  the  moves  that 
are  possible  to  them.  Our  freedom  is,  indeed,  a 
limited  one.  Before  we  can  talk  of  independence  we 
have  to  serve  a  long  apprenticeship  to  dependence. 
We  have  here,  in  fact,  to  learn  that  dependence  is, 
not  less  than  its  opposite,  one  of  the  goods  of  Ufe, 
an  essential  to  our  well-being.  And  so,  to  begin  with, 
we  are  born  helpless.  No  being  on  the  face  of  the  earth 
remains  for  so  long  a  period  a  charge  on  the  care  of 
others.  And  when  we  have  learned  to  think  and  to 
look  about  us,  we  find  ourselves  enveloped  in  a  perfect 
meshwork  of  relationships,  of  disabilities.  Every- 
thing concerning  us  seems  to  have  been  settled  before- 
hand. Everything  has  been  arranged  for  us,  without 
asking  our  leave.  That  we  should  have  come  to  life 
in  the  nineteenth  century  rather  than  the  thirteenth  ; 
that  we  find  ourselves  a  boy  instead  of  a  girl,  or  vice 
versa  ;  that  we  are  English  instead  of  Italian,  or  mid- 
African  ;    that  we  are  in  the  rank  of  a  duke  or  of  a 

204 


The  Ideal  as  Independence 

costermonger  ;  that  we  are  six  feet  or  five  and  a-half ; 
that  we  are  robust  or  deUcate,  with  the  brains  of  a 
genius  or  of  a  dullard — considerable  things  these,  when 
we  come  to  think  of  it,  and  yet  all  settled  for  us  and 
not  by  us. 

In  another  direction,  also,  we  find  how  Nature  has 
hemmed  us  in.  We  are  in  a  system  of  things  which 
we  had  no  share  in  making,  and  which  we  have  to  take 
for  exactly  what  it  is.  Have  you  considered  the  theology 
of  the  quahties  of  things  ?  Here  is  predestination 
writ  large.  Why  oxygen  should  have  this  way  of 
acting  and  hydrogen  that,  why  fire  should  burn  and 
water  drown,  are  questions  you  may  ask  and  whistle 
for  the  answers.  They  are  so,  and  will  not  alter  their 
ways.  It  is  useless  to  expostulate  with  the  north 
wind  or  to  abuse  the  heaviness  of  lead.  Our  revolu- 
tionary instincts  beat  in  vain  against  the  cosmic  laws. 
We  may  harangue  them,  or  vote  against  them,  and 
they  will  go  on  as  before.  You  may  upset  thrones 
and  empires,  but  here  is  a  constitution  which  defies 
your  efforts. 

And  if  you  cannot  escape  from  the  qualities  of  things, 
still  less  can  you  from  the  qualities  of  actions.  You 
have  a  choice  in  what  you  do.  But  you  have  no  choice 
as  to  the  results  which  follow  your  doing.  The  moral 
world  shows  itself  here  as  obstinately  conservative  as 
the  material.  The  man  who  takes  his  pleasure  in 
heavy  drinking  or  in  vulgar  debaucheries  will  find 
himself  running  up  against  the  law  which  political 
economists,  in  their  department,  call  "  the  law  of 
diminishing  returns."  He  will  find  his  pleasures 
becoming  ever  less  and  costing  him  ever  more.     He 

205 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

cannot  escape  from  a  manhood  steadily  dwindling  in 
value,  from  the  darkening  of  his  prospect,  the 
augmentation  of  inner  penalties.  By  no  ingenuity 
will  he  be  able  to  dodge  these  laws.  They  were  there 
before  him,  and  no  king  or  commoner  can  bribe  them 
into  a  remission  of  sentence.  He  is  engaged  in  the 
most  hopeless  of  all  contests — a  quarrel  with  the 
nature  of  things. 

And  the  laws  of  our  inner  nature  which  work  thus 
in  the  moral  realm  limit  in  another  direction  what  we 
are  accustomed  to  think  of  as  our  independence. 
They  draw  us  by  our  affections  and  by  our  interests 
into  associations  which  at  every  point  form  a  curb 
upon  our  personal  will.  Our  family  life,  where  it  finds 
us  at  first,  is,  as  we  have  said,  a  training  in  dependence. 
And  no  sooner  are  we  masters  of  ourselves  but  we 
form  other  ties  which  are  a  giving  away  of  our  separate 
personaUty.  Love  is  a  tissue  woven  of  life's  finest 
materials,  but  it  is  the  surest  of  bonds.  Marriage  is  a 
sharing  of  our  inmost  self.  We  are  no  longer  our  own. 
And  outside  the  home  Hfe  we  are  constantly  entering 
into  connections  which,  while  enlarging,  also  limit  us. 
We  have  spoken  of  the  working  man  seeking  indepen- 
dence by  his  trade  union.  And  undoubtedly  it  helps 
him  towards  it.  But  the  association  he  has  here 
entered  is,  on  its  side,  a  call  to  obedience.  The  con- 
dition of  belonging  to  it  is  that  he  obey  its  laws. 
And  we  can  mingle  in  no  society,  however  casual, 
without  paying  homage  to  a  thousand  unwritten 
prescriptions,  to  defy  which  would  ensure  our  speedy 
ejection. 

What,  then,  is  independence,  and  where  and  how 

206 


The  Ideal  as  Independence 

shall  we  find  it  ?  Looked  at  from  the  standpoints  we 
have  so  far  been  occupying,  we  seem  Hke  fiies  in  a  web, 
enmeshed  in  a  universe  which  offers  no  scope  for  free- 
dom. And  yet,  as  we  all  know  and  feel,  that  were  the 
falsest  of  conclusions.  The  chessboard  has  its  rules, 
which  may  not  be  broken,  but  for  that  very  reason 
you  can  play  on  it  the  freest  of  games,  no  one  Hke 
another.  We  talk  of  the  Hmitations  of  choice,  yet  we 
are  choosing  all  our  Hves.  Metaphysicians  may  weave 
their  cobwebs  round  the  will,  yet  we  know  our  will 
as  free.  We  know  it  by  practising  its  freedom.  We 
know  it  as  an  ultimate  fact  of  the  soul,  which  transcends 
all  explanations.  Here  comes  in  the  marvellous 
subtlety  of  Hfe.  We  gain  our  freedom  by  obedience, 
by  knowing  the  laws  which  encircle  us  and  by  following 
them.  And  as  we  obey  the  freer  we  become.  A 
contradiction,  you  say  !  Yes,  for  man  is  the  meeting- 
place  of  all  the  contradictions.  Our  freedom  is  in 
choosing  our  masters,  until  we  are  masters  ourselves. 

Let  us  see  now,  by  some  illustrations,  how  this 
principle  works.  Our  independence,  we  say,  lies  in 
the  power  of  choosing  our  masters.  There  are  all 
sorts  of  these,  who  claim  our  allegiance.  We  are  never 
free  of  them  ;  it  is  a  case  of  one  or  the  other.  Let 
any  one  propose,  for  instance,  to  rid  himself  of  the 
moral  law.  Is  he  free  ?  He  becomes  now  the  servant 
of  caprice,  of  the  whim  of  the  moment ;  ends  by  the 
basest  of  servitudes,  as  slave  of  the  lowest  in  him. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  men  who  stand  out  as  the 
boldest  figures  in  history,  who  have  set  at  defiance  a 
world  in  arms,  have  done  it,  we  perceive,  by  a  clear 
perception  of  the  highest  kind  of  law,  and  by  a  complete 

207 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

surrender  to  it.  The  great  independents  are  the  great 
obeyers.  They  see  God  and  the  eternal  righteousness 
so  clearly  that  nothing  else  matters.  It  is  in  that 
perception  that  Jesus  conquers  the  world  ■  by  it  monk 
Luther  overtops  pope  and  emperor  at  Worms  ;  and 
John  Knox  earns  at  his  death  the  eulogium  of  Morton  : 
"  Here  lies  one  that  never  feared  the  face  of  man  "  ; 
it  was  this  that  made  George  Fox  in  his  suit  of  leather 
the  most  intrepid  and  the  most  original  man  in  the 
England  of  his  time.  They  leaned  themselves  up 
against  the  invisible,  where  they  found  so  strong  a 
support  that  no  power  could  force  them  back.  But 
their  independence  was  always  a  dependence  ;  they 
were  independents  because  servants  of  the  Highest. 

These  are  historical  personages,  which  few  of  us  are 
likely  to  be.  But  in  our  own  spheres  the  problem 
of  independence  is  practically  the  same.  It  is  an 
affair  of  one  allegiance  versus  another.  Take,  for 
instance,  the  rules  of  living.  You  can  choose  between 
the  simpler  pleasures,  which  are  not  only  the  best, 
but  always  the  most  inexpensive  ;  and  the  artificial 
ones,  that  are  mainly  hollow,  and  that  invariably  run 
away  with  your  money.  The  high  joys  are  Nature's 
free  gifts.  For  the  minimum  of  current  coin  you  can 
have  the  pleasures  of  the  open  air,  of  the  world's 
beauty,  of  honest  work,  of  service  to  your  fellows,  of 
high  thoughts,  of  sincere  friendships,  of  the  spiritual 
life.  Food  and  raiment,  enough  for  health  and  comfort, 
are  cheap  commodities.  It  is  when  you  want  to  overeat 
yourself,  to  flash  in  jewels  and  splendid  robes,  that 
you  feel  poor.  A  walk  on  a  country  road  yields  more 
sheer  delight,  more  opportunities  of  seeing  and  enjoying 

208 


The  Ideal  as  Independence 

the  world,  than  the  rush  of  a  motor.  You  may  spend 
thousands  in  securing  introduction  to  circles  of  cynics 
who  despise  you.  Honest  John  at  the  corner,  whose 
talk  will  cost  you  nothing,  will  be  a  better  companion. 
As  to  the  table,  Sydney  Smith  in  his  old  age  made 
a  calculation  of  how  much  he  had  eaten,  beyond  what 
was  necessary  for  health  and  strength,  between  the 
ages  of  ten  and  seventy,  and  totalled  it  up  to  a  matter 
of  £7,000  ;  and  adds  :  "I  must  by  my  voracity  have 
starved  to  death  one  hundred  persons." 

The  habit  of  being  independent  of  the  artificial, 
while  for  all  of  us  the  way  to  economic  freedom  and 
to  hfe's  deeper  joys,  is  an  essential  condition  for  the 
religious  or  any  other  teacher  who  desires  to  say  his 
whole  say  without  fear.  For  such  to  seek  luxury  is 
to  give  hostages  to  the  luxurious.  But  you  cannot  hit 
a  man  who  can  "  do  without."  Socrates  knew  that 
in  Athens  ;  so  did  Spinoza,  who  refused  a  fortune 
and  ground  lenses  for  a  liveHhood  ;  so  did  Wesley, 
who  left  nothing  at  his  death  but  his  books  and  some 
silver  spoons ;  so  did  D'Alembert,  who  declined 
Catharine  of  Russia's  splendid  offers,  and  Hved  in 
humble  rooms,  attended  by  an  honest  widow,  who 
perpetually  chided  him  for  being  so  poor  a  thing  as  a 
philosopher  ;  so  did  Walt  Whitman,  who  told  America 
and  the  world  all  his  mind,  living  the  while  in  a  house 
made  of  an  overturned  boat. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  the  world's  prophets  and 
teachers  are  necessarily  to  dwell  in  hovels,  to  debar 
themselves  hfe's  refinements,  to  be  deprived  of  their 
share  of  what  is  going.  As  humanity  progresses  it 
will  take  more  care  that  its  great  voices  shall  utter 

2oq  O 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

their  whole  note,  and  shall  suffer  no  damage  thereby. 
What  it  does  mean  is  that  the  spiritual  teacher  will 
seek  his  independence  of  the  lower  by  obeying  the 
higher  ;  that  he  will  value  the  truth  he  holds  more 
than  the  reception  it  meets  with  ;  that  he  will  conquer 
the  world  in  himself  as  the  first  condition  of  conquering 
the  world  outside ;  that  he  will  sit  easy  to  consequences, 
knowing  that  the  order  of  things  he  serves — the 
spiritual  order — is  a  sane  and  sound  order,  and  must 
eventually  and  finally  conquer. 

An  independence  reached  in  this  manner,  founded 
on  these  principles,  is  at  the  farthest  remove  from  a 
mere  truculence.  Its  attitude  is  one  not  of  pride,  but 
of  humihty,  of  a  constant  willingness  to  learn.  Our 
teacher  is  loyal  to  truth,  but  he  knows  the  truth  did 
not  start  with  him  ;  it  was  here  before  he  came. 
In  teaching,  also,  he  remembers  he  has  a  service  not 
only  to  truth,  but  also  to  love,  a  mission  which  is  not 
so  much  to  smite  as  to  heal,  not  so  much  to  pull  down 
as  to  build  up.  You  will  waste  your  time  in  hammering 
at  falsehood.  Teach  the  truth,  and  falsehood  will 
wither  in  its  light.  Copernicus  did  not  destroy  the 
Ptolemaic  system  by  speaking  against  it.  He  simply 
exhibited  the  facts  as  they  were,  and  the  old  theory 
died  in  that  statement. 

The  world,  in  its  search  for  independence,  has  come 
a  long  journey — a  journey  in  which  it  has  encountered 
dragons,  waded  through  sloughs  of  despond,  wandered 
into  by-path  meadows  leading  to  Doubting  Castle 
and  Giant  Despair.  But  it  is  now  in  view  of  its  pro- 
mised land.  The  independence  it  is  winning  is  one 
founded  not  on  ignorance  but  on  knowledge ;   not  in 

210 


The   Ideal  as  Independence 

defiance  of  Nature's  laws,  but  in  obedience  to  them. 
Man  is  conquering  his  world  by  understanding  and 
respecting  it.  He  is  seeing  his  way  to  economic 
solutions  which  will  secure  for  everyone  his  share  in 
life's  beneficence,  his  place  in  the  sunshine. 

Man  will,  in  time,  achieve  his  greatest  victory  here 
in  ridding  himself  of  his  fears.  He  will  believe  and 
know  his  universe  to  be  essentially  sound  and  healthy, 
with  no  grisly  terrors  hid  behind  its  veil.  He  will 
accept  its  losses  as  ultimate  gains,  its  pains  as  discipline, 
its  death  as  birth,  its  centre  as  Holiness  and  Love.  He 
will  know  himself  as  of  a  divine  household,  where  he 
will  serve  as  a  son,  and  find  in^that  service  his  perfect 
liberty. 


211 


XXII 
LAND    AND    PEOPLE 

On  no  subject  is  the  education  of  the  people,  rich 
and  poor  aUke,  more  deplorably  deficient  than  on 
this  of  the  land.  It  is  at  the  moment  here  in  England 
one  of  acute  party  controversy,  and  party  contro- 
versy is  usually  the  worst  sort  of  teaching.  It  is 
full  of  misleading  cries,  of  falsities  engendered  by 
ignorance,  and  still  more  by  cunning  self-interest. 
On  our  way  to  the  truth  we  have  to  struggle  through 
dense  undergrowths  of  sophistries,  legal  word-puzzles, 
skilful  concealments  of  the  plain  fact.  Yet  the  main 
truths  are  simple  enough,  and  what,  above  all  things 
else,  the  people  need  to-day  is  to  be  helped  to  see 
them.  Let  us  try  here  to  find  out  what  they  are, 
and  the  sort  of  action  to  which  they  point. 

We  are  all  of  us  related  to  the  land.  Man  belongs 
to  it  as  much  as  does  the  tree  to  the  soil  it  grows  in. 
He  is  born  on  some  square  yard  of  it ;  its  stretching 
surfaces  are  among  the  first  things  his  eye  rests  on  ; 
beneath  him  it  Hes,  the  support  of  his  tottering  infant 
footstep  ;  out  of  it  come  his  food,  his  fuel,  his  entire 
apparatus  of  living  ;  on  its  foundation  stands  the 
dwelling  that  shelters  him  ;  finally,  when  he  dies, 
his  body  finds  here  its  resting-place.  Nature  plainly 
has  wedded  him  to  the  land,  made  it  the  necessity 

212 


Land  and   People 

of  his  existence  ;  necessary  as  is  air  to  his  lungs,  as 
language  is  to  his  thought. 

Here,  to  begin  with,  all  men  are  equal.  The  day 
labourer  and  the  duke  are  one  in  this,  that  the  land 
is  part  of  their  hfe,  and  that  they  can  in  no  wise  do 
without  it.  But  starting  from  this  point,  the  duke 
and  the  peasant  speedily  diverge.  Between  the 
two,  as  they  grow  up,  rises  the  enormous  question 
of  ownership,  of  their  rights  in  the  land.  The  one 
calls  himself  a  proprietor.  Over  tens  of  thousands 
of  acres  of  it  he  exercises  enormous  powers.  He 
decrees  what  shall  be  done  with  it ;  whether  it  shall 
be  cultivated  or  left  desolate.  He  exercises  the 
right  of  putting  up  buildings,  or  the  stopping  of 
building ;  decides  whether  people  shall  view  its 
Nature-scenery  or  be  shut  off  by  notice-boards ; 
whether  even  a  given  religion  shall  find  house-room 
there  or  not.  The  peasant  has  none  of  these  rights. 
There  are  roads  on  which  he  can  walk  ;  fields  which 
he  can  till — for  another  ;  some  hovel  where,  on  terms, 
he  can  shelter  ;  a  few  feet  of  soil  where,  when  he 
dies,  his  body  can  He.     And  there  his  claim  ceases. 

And  this,  with  some  modifications,  is  the  position 
of  the  enormous  mass  of  the  Enghsh  people  to-day. 
Half  the  land  in  this  country  is  owned  by  some  2,500 
people.  Under  these  conditions  a  singular  and  por- 
tentous process  is  going  on.  The  non-landowners 
in  ever  increasing  numbers  have  deserted  the  fields 
and  hillsides  to  flock  into  the  towns.  In  these  great, 
ill-built,  ill-smelling,  insanitary  areas  are  crowded 
eighty  per  cent,  of  the  entire  population.  In  a  return 
of  1903,  thirty  milHon  acres  out  of  a  total  of  eighty 

213 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

millions  in  the  United  Kingdom  are  given  as  un- 
cultivated. What  has  happened  in  England  is  pre- 
cisely what  took  place  in  ancient  Italy.  Tacitus 
describes  the  latifiindia,  the  great  landed  estates 
there,  as  having  been  the  ruin  of  Rome.  The  entire 
countryside  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  few  wealthy 
patricians,  who  cultivated  it  by  slave  labour.  The 
expropriated  small  proprietors  were  driven  into  the 
city,  becoming  there  a  degenerate  and  dissolute  mob. 
History  here  offers  us  one  of  the  simplest,  yet  stern- 
est, of  Nature's  lessons.  You  shut  off  the  people 
from  the  land  :    you  destroy  the  nation. 

We  are,  it  is  evident,  a  perilously  long  way  from 
the  right  track.  To  regain  it  we  must  come  back 
to  first  principles.  And  the  first  of  first  principles  is 
the  question  of  ownership.  When  we  talk  of  private 
people  owning  the  land,  we  must  ask  what  is  their 
owning.  Have  they  the  ultimate  ownership ;  and 
if  not,  who  has  ?  It  is  astonishing  that  the  world, 
for  such  long  periods  and  at  such  cost  to  itself,  has 
failed  to  comprehend  that  simple  question.  For  the 
answer  is  so  plain.  There  is  only  one  ultimate  owner, 
and  that  is  the  State,  the  entire  community.  That 
this  is  so  is  proved  by  the  entire  history  of  owning. 
Under  every  phase  of  national  development ;  under 
autocracy,  feudaUsm,  Hmited  monarchy,  republic — 
the  State  has  always  been  supreme  proprietor.  All 
private  persons  of  whatever  degree  have  only  been 
sub-owners,  their  rights  and  privileges — their  kind 
of  owning,  that  is — being  subject  to  the  will  of  the 
power  above.  Under  feudaUsm  the  dependence  of 
the  estate-holder — knight,   baron,  or  what  not — was 

214 


Land  and  People 


shown  by  the  terms  of  his  agreement.  In  return  for 
his  holding  he  must  furnish  so  many  men,  armed 
and  equipped  for  the  service  of  the  monarch  ;  he 
must  maintain  order  within  his  borders  ;  he  must 
uphold  the  laws.  He  ruled  despotically  within  his 
domain  because  the  State  idea  was  despotic.  But 
in  all  the  changes  that  have  come  since  ;  under  good 
kings  and  bad  ;  under  the  commonwealth  ;  during 
the  growth  of  constitutionalism  and  the  rise  of  the 
people  to  power,  there  has  been  no  challenge  of  the 
idea  that  the  State  is  the  supreme  landlord. 

What  has  changed  here — and  this  is  the  all-im- 
portant point — is  the  idea  of  who  governs  the  State. 
The  evolution  of  that  idea  is  a  very  slow  one.  It  is 
only  now  dimly  apprehended.  When  the  nation  has 
at  last  reached  the  full  consciousness  of  itself ;  reahses 
that  the  people  themselves,  by  their  elected  repre- 
sentatives, are  the  governing  power,  are  the  supreme 
authority  in  ownership,  we  shall  see  changes.  We 
have  already  gone  far  in  that  direction  ;  how  far 
may  be  shown  by  a  concrete  illustration.  According 
to  the  theory  of  absolute  ownership  the  square  mile 
round  the  Bank  of  England  could,  on  the  expiration 
of  leases,  be  turned  by  the  landlords  into  a  desert, 
every  office,  every  building  being  razed  and  destroyed. 
But  would  any  landlord  dare  to  make  the  experiment  ? 
The  municipal  consciousness  which  makes  such  a 
procedure  unthinkable  is  the  new  power  in  the  world. 
It  is  in  a  limited  form  the  expression  of  the  fact  that 
the  community  in  these  matters  is  supreme  ;  that 
its  welfare  is  the  final  law.  Over  vast  breadths  of 
the  country  this  power  is  at  present  dormant.     But 

215 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

the  common  consciousness  is  rapidly  ripening,  and 
will  ere  long  be  showing  itselt  in  the  ownings  of  Dorset 
or  the  Scottish  highlaaids  as  much  as  in  the  heart  of 
the  City.  The  course  of  things  here  is  inevitable. 
The  people  will  come  to  see,  and  to  act  on  the  per- 
ception, that,  as  Mill  long  ago  enunciated,  "  the 
claim  of  the  landholder  is  altogether  subordinate 
to  the  general  policy  of  the  State.  When  private 
property  in  land  is  not  expedient  it  is  unjust." 

This  is  by  no  means  to  say  that  private  ownership 
in  land  is  in  itself  an  evil  :  is  a  thing  to  be  destroyed. 
The  history  of  community  in  land  is  not  encouraging. 
It  has  nowhere  shown  itself  as  a  condition  of  pros- 
perity and  progress.  It  is  to-day  practised  among 
the  village  communities  of  India,  Russia  and  the 
Slavonic  countries  under  Turkey.  It  was  for  ages 
the  system  of  the  nomad  tribes  of  Tartary  and  of 
the  Red  Indians  of  America.  None  of  these  peoples 
have  come  to  much.  Community-holding  has  de- 
veloped neither  industry  nor  initiative. 

Besides,  the  idea  of  property-holding,  of  having 
something  of  your  own,  is  one  of  man's  deepest- 
rooted  pleasures  :  is  an  incentive  to  his  utmost  exer- 
tions. The  problem  is  not  to  get  rid  of  that  joy 
and  that  incentive,  but  how  rather  to  spread  it  most 
widely  ;  to  make  the  greatest  number  sharers  in  it. 
France  solved  that  problem  by  the  drastic  process 
of  her  Revolution.  It  was  through  blood  and  fire 
the  people  asserted  themselves  as  the  State  ;  and 
in  that  capacity  changed  the  countr}^  from  a  despotism 
in  which  the  peasant  was  a  slave  into  a  land  of  property- 
owners.     To-day   France   has    8,000,000    landowners, 

216 


Land  and   People 


the  bulk  of  them  peasants,  who  cultivate  ever}^  inch 
of  the  soil — the  most  industrious,  frugal  and  com- 
fortable of  peoples.  The  French  Revolution  was 
bloody  and  terrible  ;  ours  will  be  a  peaceable  one. 
But  it  is  coming  ;    is,  in  fact,  already  in  full  process. 

The  final  principle  here,  we  repeat,  is  that  the 
State — the  people,  that  is,  in  its  collective,  voting 
capacity — is  the  supreme  landowner.  When  it  reaches 
the  full  consciousness  of  its  power  it  will  decide  how, 
in  what  way  and  to  what  extent  the  private  person 
shall  be  an  owner.  It  will  decide  what  his  owner- 
ship amounts  to.  When  a  man  buys  a  pistol  the 
State  decrees  how  far  it  is  his.  Because  he  has  paid 
for  it  he  is  not  permitted  its  unlimited  use.  He  is 
not  allowed,  for  instance,  to  fire  it  up  and  down 
where  the  crowd  is  passing  in  Fleet-street.  In  the 
same  way,  because  a  man  has  paid  for  his  land  the 
State  will  prescribe  and  limit  his  powers  over  it. 
It  will  allow  him  all  the  pleasures  of  ownership  up 
to  the  point  where  they  interfere  with  the  rights 
of  his  neighbour,  with  the  general  welfare  of  the 
community. 

It  is  certain  that  the  application  of  this  principle 
will,  in  England  and  elsewhere,  reach  the  point  of 
determining  how  much  land  any  one  private  person 
may  possess.  There  is  only  so  much  land  in  the 
country  to  be  divided,  and  if  the  enjoyment  of  owner- 
ship is  to  be  a  widespread  one,  that  can  only  be  by 
the  restriction  of  each  man's  share.  If  there  is  only 
one  pudding,  and  one  man  wants  all  of  it,  the  rest 
go  without.  Theoretically,  one  man,  on  our  present 
system,   could  have  the  whole  pudding.     One  man 

217 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

could  own  all  England,  and  iDur  forty  millions — minus 
one — be  absolutely  shut  out  from  possession.  We 
have  in  England  made  some  progress  towards  that 
astonishing  consummation  when  we  see  a  duke  or  a 
milHonaire  owning  the  best  part  of  a  county  or  half 
the  Highlands. 

But  that  process  is  drawing  to  an  end.  On  the 
outskirts  of  the  Empire  the  true  principle  is  at  last 
coming  into  recognition,  and  the  example  will  soon 
be  followed  at  the  centre.  In  New  Zealand  the 
colony  began  with  unlimited  ownership.  Vast  tracts 
of  the  country  were  acquired  by  wealthy  proprietors, 
shutting  out  in  this  way  the  chances  of  the  less- 
endowed.  But  the  enormous  danger  here  has  been 
perceived  in  time,  and  New  Zealand  is  now  a  country 
of  holdings  Hmited  by  the  Government — to  the  vast 
advantage  of  land  and  people. 

What  has  been  found  necessary  to  New  Zealand 
is  doubly,  trebly  necessary  to  England.  We  are 
killing  ourselves  as  a  people  by  town  Hfe.  It  is  not 
simply  to  grow  corn,  but  to  grow  men  that  we  are 
bound  to  revise  our  land  system.  For  England, 
after  all,  is  not  so  much  its  broad  acres  as  its  EngUsh- 
men.  More  than  raising  beeves  is  the  raising  of  the 
English  stature,  is  the  broadening  of  its  chest  measure- 
ments. It  has  gone  down,  all  this,  so  wofully  of  late, 
and  there  is  only  one  way  of  staying  the  decline. 
**  Yeomanhood,  husbandry,"  says  Richard  Whiteing, 
*'  above  poverty  and  dependence,  below  luxury  and 
idleness,  what  can  match  it  for  bringing  out  the  best 
in  man  !  "  To  get  back  that  condition  English  land 
will  have  to  be  redivided — a  return  organised  to  the 

2l8 


Land  and  People 


old,  happier  state  where  "  every  rood  of  ground 
maintained  its  man." 

It  is  under  such  conditions  that  we  shall  reach  not 
only  a  stalwart  manhood,  but  a  true  agriculture — 
that  we  shall  learn  the  wealth  of  the  English  soil.  We 
shall  in  this  way  obtain  what  we  see  in  Belgium  and 
France — the  new  farming,  which,  as  Prince  Kropotkin 
shows,  in  his  "  Fields,  Factories  and  Workshops," 
aims  at  cropping  not  five  or  six  tons  of  grass,  but  fifty 
or  a  hundred  tons  of  vegetables  on  the  same  space  ; 
'^ot  £5  worth  of  hay,  but  £100  worth  of  various  pro- 
duce. We  shall  change  here  as  Denmark  has  changed 
— Denmark  which  from  a  country  of  large  farms  has 
changed  in  the  century  to  a  land  of  peasant  pro- 
prietors, and  from  being  a  land  of  extreme  poverty  to 
be  now  one  of  the  richest  countries  in  the  world — 
next  to  ourselves  in  wealth  per  head,  but  vastly 
better  off  than  ourselves  in  the  distribution  of  it  and 
the  corresponding  diffusion  of  happiness. 

We  are  preaching  here  what  may  seem  to  some  a 
revolutionary  doctrine,  but  it  is  one  from  which  there 
is  nothing  to  fear  and  everything  to  hope.  It  is  a 
doctrine  founded  on  common-sense  and  the  ever- 
growing human  experience.  There  is,  we  say,  nothing 
here  to  be  afraid  of.  When  we  speak  of  the  growing 
power  of  the  people  in  the  State,  we  have  always 
to  remember  that  with  the  growing  power  there  is 
that  equally  growing  sense  of  responsibihty  which 
confines  the  power  to  a  cautious  and  beneficent  use. 
The  rearrangements  w^e  speak  of  will  be  gradual  and 
without  violence.  There  will  be  a  careful  safeguard- 
ing of  all  genuine  rights,   of  all  equitable  interests. 

219 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

In  resuming  its  rights  the  State  will  discharge  all 
well-founded  claims.  In  that  resumption  it  will,  as 
we  have  seen,  violate  no  precedent.  It  has,  through- 
out its  history,  been  always  the  supreme  owner,  the 
final  authority.  The  difference  in  its  procedure  will 
b?,  that  whereas  in  earHer  time  the  ultimate  power 
was  wielded  despotically  in  the  interests  of  the  few 
at  the  expense  of  the  many,  in  the  new  time  it  will 
act  as  the  collective  will  of  the  whole  in  the  interests 
of  its  every  member. 


220 


XXIII 
RELIGION    AND    THE    STATE 

The  title  suggests  an  old  and  still  very  living 
controversy  with  which  we  do  not  propose  here 
specially  to  deal.  We  leave  alone  the  tempting 
polemic  of  Free  Church  versus  State  Church.  Our 
readers,  we  take  it  for  granted,  have  some  knowledge 
of  it.  The  arguments  fro  and  con  still  resound 
from  opposing  platforms.  And  the  literature  of  it 
is  open  for  all  men  to  read  ;  Hooker  and  Grotius  and 
Montesquieu,  and  Chalmers  and  Morrison  ;  Gladstone's 
youthful  essay  and  Macaulay's  crushing  rejoinder. 
It  is  a  fruitful  and  quite  necessary  study.  But  there 
is  another,  and,  we  think,  a  deeper.  In  speaking  here 
of  Religion  and  the  State,  what  we  propose  to  deal 
with  is  the  test  of  the  value  of  a  religion  which  is 
offered  by  the  action  of  it  upon  the  State  as  a 
community. 

You  go  there  to  the  root  of  matters  in  religion. 
Ours  is  an  age  of  pragmatism,  an  age,  that  is,  when  we 
are  seeking  to  solve  our  problems  by  the  test  of  results 
We  ask  about  this  system  and  that,  "  How  does  it 
work  ?  What  effect  has  it  upon  the  development 
of  society  ;  on  the  furtherance  of  happiness  ;  on  the 
making  of  manhood  ?  "  And  there  is  a  general  con- 
sensus that,  in  the  existing  state  of  our  knowledge, 

221 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

you  can  get  no  better  criterion.  We  are  agreeing  to 
seek  our  conclusions,  not  in  the  inaccessible  heights  of 
the  transcendental,  but  here,  where  we  can  reach 
them,  in  the  testimony  of  facts. 

Our  age  is  singularly  fortunate  in  this  respect. 
It  has  the  facts  to  go  upon.  We  have  a  long  history 
behind  us,  and  a  vastly  improved  apparatus  for 
investigating  it.  We  are  to-day  harvesting  "  the 
slow  result  of  time."  The  nations  with  their  current 
civiHsation,  their  progress  or  decline,  their  types 
of  manhood  and  of  character,  the  height  of  their 
thinking  and  their  doing,  are  invaluable  witnesses  in 
the  quest  we  are  upon,  the  quest  as  to  the  value  of 
religions  and  of  rehgion. 

In  our  inquiry  the  questions  we  have  to  ask  of 
history  are  something  of  this  kind.  Can  nations  do 
without  a  religion  ;  can  they,  that  is,  do  without 
invisible,  spiritual  influences  and  sanctions  for  conduct  ? 
If  not,  if  religion  is  necessary,  what  kind  of  rehgion 
has  proved  itself  best  for  the  community  ?  On  the 
first  question  the  early  world,  which  one  must  remember 
had  an  earlier  world  behind  it,  was  fairly  unanimous. 
The  East — Egypt,  Assyria,  China,  India — from  the 
beginning  was  full  of  religion.  It  filled  the  horizon. 
India,  indeed,  may  be  said  to  have  had  no  other 
history  than  this.  And  so  further  West.  In  Greece 
Plato  proposed  to  punish  atheists  as  dangerous  to 
the  State.  Europe  has  been  religious  through  many 
centuries.  But  now  the  note  is  changing.  In  France 
we  have  books  on  "  The  Coming  Irreligion,"  and 
there  is  a  laborious  attempt  to  found  a  morality 
without  God.     "  God  is  a  hypothesis  we  are  ehmin- 

223 


Religion   and    the    State 

ating,"  says  one  writer.  It  is  noteworthy,  however, 
that  the  two  men  who,  more  than  any  others,  produced 
modern  France — Voltaire  and  Rousseau — were  of  a 
quite  contrary  opinion.  "  If  God  does  not  exist  we 
should  have  to  invent  Him,"  said  Voltaire.  And 
once,  when  a  discussion  on  atheism  commenced  at 
his  table,  he  ordered  the  servants  out  of  the  room. 
On  being  asked  his  reason,  he  replied  that  he  did  not 
wish  that  he  and  his  guests  should  have  their  throats 
cut.  Rousseau  went  much  further.  In  his  ideal 
State  he  demands  of  the  citizen  as  a  religious  minimum, 
anti-Catholicism,  a  behef  in  God,  in  the  immortahty 
of  the  soul,  in  Providence  and  in  future  rewards  and 
punishments. 

The  two  men,  revolutionary  as  they  were,  spoke 
from  what  they  knew  of  the  moral  effect  of  non- 
religion.  And  Benjamin  Franklin,  who  was  so 
intimately  related  to  the  French  movement,  adds  a 
striking  testimony  of  his  own.  Speaking  of  his 
experience  and  that  of  his  friends,  he  says,  without 
rehgion  morality  gave  way  at  once,  even  to  common 
honesty  and  common  decency,  and  it  was  only  after 
much  reflection  that  he  began  to  suspect  that  wrong 
was  not  wrong  because  it  was  forbidden,  but  was 
forbidden  because  it  was  wrong.  How  modern  France 
is  faring  in  its  experiment  of  no  religion  may  be  deduced 
in  part  from  the  enormous  growth  of  juvenile  crime, 
and  from  such  testimonies  as,  to  select  one  out  of 
many,  this  of  a  contemporary  writer,  M.  Chas. 
Deherme  :  "  More  than  a  hundred  years  after  the 
great  Revolution,  after  thirty  years  of  a  Republic, 
by    turns    Conservative,    Opportunist,    Radical    and 

323 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

Socialist,  we  find  ourselves  wallowing  in  the  mud 
.  .  .  with  prostitution  and  alcohol  for  our  joys, 
the  Press  and  politics  for  our  activities ;  with  money 
and  appearance  for  ideal."  We  are  surely  not 
exceeding  the  limits  of  moderation  when  we  say 
that  whatever  future  the  non-religion  outlook  may 
have,  in  France  or  elsewhere,  its  present  record  is 
not  inspiring. 

But  supposing  we  accept  religion  as,  in  some  form 
or  other,  a  necessity  to  the  communal  well-being,  the 
next  question  is,  "  \A^hat  rehgion  ?  "  There  are  a  good 
many,  and  we  have  to  choose.  Of  those  which  history 
offers  us,  there  are  some  about  which  there  is  no 
difficulty.  They  are  extinct,  and  for  the  excellent 
reason  that  they  were  not  good  enough  to  survive. 
Long  before  the  Greek  and  Roman  paganisms  suc- 
cumbed they  had  lost  all  moral  weight.  Bad  gods 
are  worse  than  none.  A  worship  such  as  that  of  the 
Aphrodite  of  Corinth,  where  a  thousand  prostitutes 
were  included  in  the  service  of  her  temple,  stood  self- 
condemned.  The  serious  people  of  the  time  sought 
in  philosophy  what  they  could  not  find  in  ceremonial. 
And  since  then  the  feehng  has  spread  till  it  has  become 
well-nigh  universal  that  a  religion  which  does  not 
morally  Hft  people  is  not  worth  house-room  on  this 
planet. 

Of  extant  religions  outside  Christianity,  we  have 
Mohammedanism,  Brahminism,  Buddhism,  Confu- 
cianism with  its  allied  Taoism.  Great  faiths,  which 
have  nourished  milHons  of  souls,  and  which  our 
generation  is  learning  at  last  to  speak  of  with  respect. 
They  have  all,  in  different  degrees,  addressed  them 

224 


Religion   and    the    State 

selves  to  man's  nobler  part.  They  have  established 
a  morality  and  inspired  it.  They  have  regarded 
human  life  as  a  high  mystery,  related  to  the  infinite 
and  the  eternal.  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  think  that 
the  myriads  who  have  Uved  and  died  under  them 
were  without  Heaven's  guidance  and  care. 

But  in  studying  them  we  are  forced  upon  com- 
parisons. We  have  to  ask  what  has  been  their  relative 
effect  upon  the  evolution  of  character  and  the  general 
well-being  ?  And  here  history  and  the  present  state 
of  the  world  offer  their  verdict.  It  is  the  simple  fact 
that  no  one  of  these  religions  is  the  faith  of  the  first- 
class  races.  Mohammedanism  has  Hfted  the  peoples 
it  dominated  a  certain  stage,  but  has  left  them  there. 
Brahminism  and  its  offspring  Buddhism,  rooted  as 
they  are  in  pessimism,  have  sunk  the  East  in  a  vast 
lethargy  without  movement  or  initiative.  It  is  the 
simple  truth  that  the  nations  which  call  themselves 
Christian  are  the  leaders  of  the  world.  The  fact  may, 
we  know,  be  explained  in  more  ways  than  one.  But 
it  is  there.  Say  what  you  will  of  Christianity  ;  here, 
at  any  rate,  is  the  point,  that  the  most  virile  peoples  of 
to-day,  the  peoples  whose  arts,  industries,  ideas,  rule 
the  earth,  are  peoples  amongst  whom  Christianity 
through  long  centuries  has  been  the  accepted  faith. 
Against  all  adverse  criticisms  the  trainer,  in  answer, 
produces  his  pupil. 

Confronted  with  this  fact  we  inquire  for  the  secret. 
In  searching  for  it  we  have  to  admit — for  the  history 
here  is  again  plain  and  unmistakable — that  Chris- 
tianity, in  its  dominant  forms,  has  been  mixed  up  with 
all  manner  of  errors,  superstitions,  tyrannies,  cruelties. 

225  p 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

But  this  also  we  note,  that  it  has  always  produced 
the  protest  against  them,  and  has  not  ceased  in  the 
process  of  ridding  itself  of  them.  And,  meanwhile, 
it  has  gone  on  producing  great  races.  Is  there  not 
some  secret  here,  not  of  dogma  or  theology  perhaps, 
but  of  hfe  ?  Is  not  that  estimate  of  Montesquieu — 
sanest  and  best  equipped  of  observers — a  help  towards 
understanding  the  secret  where,  comparing  Christianity 
with  the  faiths  it  superseded,  he  speaks  of  it  as  "  a 
religion  which  envelops  all  the  passions,  which  is  not 
more  jealous  of  actions  than  of  desires  and  thoughts  ; 
which  holds  us  not  by  chains  but  by  innumerable 
threads  ;  which  leaves  behind  it  human  justice  and 
begins  another  justice  "  ? 

The  secret  of  Christianity  is,  in  short,  the  secret  of 
the  highest  Hfe,  and  its  history  has  shown  it  to  be 
such  by  revealing  its  capacity  for  constant  develop- 
ment. It  has  retained  its  position  by  an  incessant 
internal  growth.  Its  story  has  been  one  of  constant 
revivals  which  have  always  been  reforms.  Here  it  is 
that  Protestantism  came  in  as  a  necessary  phase  in 
its  movement.  It  is,  we  observe,  that  amongst  the 
divisions  of  Christendom  the  Protestant  Christian 
races  are  those  at  the  top.  The  evidence  for  Protes- 
tantism is  again  the  historical  one  ;  the  evidence  of 
the  people  it  has  developed.  Had  Christianity  been 
tied  to  Romanism  it  could  not  have  kept  its  place. 
Ranke's  cool  judgment  pronounces  thus  on  the  Roman 
supremacy  before  the  Reformation  :  "I  know  not 
whether  any  man  of  sound  understanding  could 
seriously  wish  that  this  state  of  things  had  remained 
unshaken  and  unchanged  in  Europe  ;    whether  any 

zz6 


Religion   and   the   State 

man  believes  that  the  will  and  power  to  look  truth 
in  the  face — the  manly  piety  acquainted  with  the 
grounds  of  its  faith — could  ever  have  been  matured 
under  such  influences  ?  " 

There  are  two  things  which  to-day  render  Romanism 
impossible  as  the  leader  of  progressive  peoples  ;  one 
is  its  attitude  to  the  intellect,  the  other  its  attitude 
to  morals.  As  to  the  former,  the  Abbe  Loisy,  himself 
a  Catholic,  in  his  "  Evangile  et  I'Eglise,"  puts  his 
finger  on  the  spot.  "  We  cannot  deny,"  says  he, 
**  that  the  tendency  of  Catholicism  has  been  towards 
the  effacement  of  the  individual,  to  place  man  under 
tutelage,  to  control  all  his  activities  in  a  way  which 
does  not  help  initiative.  Its  rock  is  to  want  too 
much  to  govern  men  in  place  of  elevating  souls." 
Modernism  is  the  cry  of  Rome's  imprisoned  intellect 
to-day,  and  we  see  how  it  is  being  treated.  Rome's 
answer  to  learning  and  argument  is  brute  force.  Its 
latest  deed,  the  refusing  the  rites  of  burial  to  Father 
Tyrrell,  one  of  the  noblest  intellects  and  purest  spirits 
of  our  time,  reveals  the  spirit  by  which  it  is  now, 
as  of  old,  possessed — its  fear  of  truth,  its  hatred  of 
freedom. 

And  next  we  say  is  its  relation  to  morals.  Nothing 
has  occurred  in  its  later  history  to  weaken  the  indict- 
ment which  Michelet,  speaking  of  the  French  social  life 
of  his  time,  brought  against  the  domestic  system  of 
Rome  :  ■'  The  priest,  there  is  our  enemy.  Why  is  he 
the  open  wound  of  modern  society,  the  ferment  of 
discord  between  husband  and  wife,  between  father 
and  daughter?  Because  the  priesthood  is  founded 
on  a  double  immorality,  celibacy  and  the  confessional." 

227 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

The  two  things  in  their  conjunction  are  a  conspiracy 
against  man's  better  nature.  They  corrupt  the 
priest  and  through  him  the  social  Hfe  where  he  has 
influence.  They  first  debar  him  from  the  legitimate 
exercise  of  his  manhood's  instincts,  and  then  turn  him 
loose  upon  the  womanhood  of  his  parish,  compeUing 
him  by  the  confessional  to  enter  into  their  most 
intimate  secrets.  What  that  confessional  means  may 
be  gathered  from  its  official  text-books.  To-day  the 
"  Moral  Theology  "  of  Liguori  is  the  authorised  manual 
of  the  Roman  clergy.  In  recent  times  both  Pius  IX. 
and  Leo  XIII.  have  declared  it  the  norm  of  moraHty 
for  all  CathoKc  confessors.  Of  this  work  Robert 
Grossmann  says  :  "I  have  found  in  it  descriptions  of 
all  kinds,  terrible  in  their  grossness  and  immorality  ; 
descriptions  of  things  of  which  respectable  men  scarce 
know  the  existence.  The  sexual  perversions  to  which 
it  introduces  us  would  only  be  known  in  the  asylums 
of  the  most  infamous  pornography." 

From  this,  as  any  student  of  human  nature  knows, 
there  could  be  only  one  result.  The  testimony  both  of 
ancient  and  modern  times  is  the  same.  A  Bull  of  Pope 
Gregory  XII.,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  speaks  of  the 
fearful  libertinage  of  monks  and  nuns.  Says  Erasmus 
in  the  sixteenth  :  "  There  are  priests  now  in  vast 
numbers,  seculars  and  regulars,  and  it  is  notorious 
that  very  few  are  chaste."  Of  the  same  period  Zwingli, 
who  had  been  a  priest,  observes  of  the  Catholic  clergy, 
"  Scarce  one  in  a  thousand  was  chaste."  As  to  our  own 
time,  a  French  Abbe,  conversing  with  the  present 
writer,  said  he  beUeved  that  about  one-third  of  the 
French    priesthood    might    be    regarded    as    strictly 

228 


Religion  and  the   State 

continent.  One  could  multiply  this  evidence  to  any 
extent.  The  thing  is  notorious,  and  one  may  say 
inevitable.  We  repeat,  till  Rome  has  set  itself  right 
with  the  intellect  and  with  morality,  it  must  renounce 
its  pretension  to  be  the  representative  of  Christianity, 
to  be  a  leader  of  the  higher  civilisation. 

Our  study  here  is  necessarily  a  very  slight  one,  but 
it  seems  to  lead  us  to  some  conclusions.  Religion  is  an 
integral  and  necessary  element  in  human  affairs. 
We  cannot,  as  communities,  get  on  without  it.  Amongst 
the  competing  faiths  Christianity  exhibits  itself  as  the 
religion  of  the  foremost  races.  It  holds  its  place  as, 
in  its  essence,  a  manifestation  of  the  highest  life. 
During  its  course  through  the  ages  it  has  been 
encrusted  with  divers  errors  and  evils,  but  has  deve- 
loped in  itself  the  force  by  which  these  contradic- 
tories have  been  successively  discovered  and  thrown 
off.  In  all  ages,  in  our  own  not  the  least,  where  its 
spirit  has  been  loyally  accepted,  it  has  developed  the 
noblest  types  of  humanity,  has  shown  its  capacity 
to  Hft  the  soul  to  the  highest  possibiUties.  Its  future 
depends  on  the  extent  to  which  it  prunes  itself  of  its 
excrescences,  and  works  on  its  ultimate  principle,  as 
the  pure  love  of  God  and  the  pure  love  of  the  brother- 
hood of  man. 


229 


XXIV 

OUR    POOR    RELATIONS 

One  might  have  much  to  say  about  the  poor  relation 
as  we  know  him  in  society.  In  this  mad  world  of  ours, 
for  every  man  who  succeeds  there  are  half-a-dozen 
who  fail,  and  who  lean  up  against  this  strong  one  as  a 
supporting  wall.  The  thriftless  brother,  the  orphan 
niece  left  on  his  hands,  the  thirty-second  cousin  who 
has  tried  so  many  things  and  comes  back  always  on  his 
prosperous  relative  as  his  one  reliable  asset — with  all 
these  we  are  so  familiar.  But  our  thoughts  are  not 
now  in  this  direction.  There  is  a  relative — a  blood 
relation — lower  down,  whose  position  and  whose  claims 
upon  us  we  have  hardly  yet  begun  to  understand  ; 
whom  it  is  high  time  we  made  some  endeavour  to 
recognise. 

In  our  desperate  fight  for  success  as  competitors  with 
our  fellows  we  are  apt  to  forget  the  extraordinary 
position  we  occupy  in  relation  to  another  set  of  com- 
petitors— the  animal  world.  In  thinking  of  dukes  and 
princes  as  at  the  top  of  things  we  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  in  a  deeper,  vaster  sense  we  are  all  at  the  top. 
The  human,  as  such,  apart  from  acres  and  titles — by 
the  mere  fact  of  being  human — is  master  on  this 
planet.  Have  we  ever  asked  how  it  would  have  been 
with  us  had  we  come  into  a  world  where  we  were  second 

230 


Our  Poor  Relations 

and  not  first  ?  It  is  so  entirely  conceivable.  To 
millions  of  beings  who  woke  this  morning — to  horses, 
dogs,  cattle,  to  all  things  breathing  except  ourselves,  it 
is  the  fact  of  their  lives.  And  there  is  nothing,  so  far 
as  we  know,  in  the  ultimate  reason  of  things,  to  have 
made  it  impossible  for  a  race  to  have  been  co-dwellers 
on  this  planet,  as  superior  to  ourselves  as  we  are  to  the 
dog ;  possessed  of  powers  that  would  have  reduced  us 
to  the  second  rank,  made  us  the  instruments  of  their 
supremer  will.  But  it  has  not  been  so.  We  are  in 
possession.     In  the  world-struggle  we  have  conquered. 

The  size  and  quaUty  of  our  brain  has  more  than 
counterbalanced  all  our  defects  of  eye  and  limb.  We 
cannot  see  as  far  as  the  eagle,  but  eagles  do  not  invent 
telescopes.  The  flexor  of  the  thigh  of  a  tiger  is  the 
most  wonderful  muscle  in  the  world,  but  the  tiger  goes 
down  before  man's  rifle.  The  bird  has  a  secret  of 
flying  which  we  are  clumsily  trying  to  imitate.  But 
bird  flights  alone  are  no  key  to  mastery.  When  we 
fly  we  shall  do  so  to  more  purpose  than  ever  bird  has 
done.  We  are,  we  say,  in  the  astonishing  position  of 
having  countless  myriads  of  beings,  all  the  beings  we 
can  see,  in  their  endless  range  of  division,  sub-division, 
genus,  species,  absolutely  in  our  power,  to  do  with  as  we 
will,  and  no  one  to  stay  us.  If  dogs  could  formulate  a 
theology  they  would  think  of  us  as  gods. 

When  we  come  to  the  question  of  man's  use  of  his 
power  the  answer  is  not  so  flattering.  Especially  is 
that  true  in  the  West.  The  earlier  civilisations  have  a 
better  record  here  than  the  later  ones.  In  the  East, 
from  immemorial  times,  the  treatment  of  animals  has 
been  a  religious  question.     The  animal  has  indeed  been 

231 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

a  subject  of  worship.  There  has  been  a  cult  of  the 
cat,  the  ibis,  the  sacred  bull.  Kropotkin  thinks  the 
primitive  moraUty  was  founded  largely  on  association 
with  animals,  that  it  was  in  fact  a  herd-morality.  And 
the  offering  of  animals  in  sacrifice  was  always  a  tribute 
to  their  religious  significance.  In  India  the  doctrine  of 
the  transmigration  of  souls  entered  profoundly  into  the 
question.  You  will  think  more  of  a  fly  if  you  believe 
it  may  contain  the  soul  of  one  of  your  ancestors. 

The  West,  at  any  rate  the  later  West,  has  had  no 
traditions  of  this  kind.  It  has  had  next  to  no  religion 
about  animals,  and  it  is  only  now  that  we  are  beginning 
to  think  there  may  be  an  ethic  about  them.  The 
ruHng  supposition  has  been  that  animals  have  no 
rights.  Think  of  our  use  of  them,  of  the  highest  of 
them  !  When  modern  nations  go  to  war  they  do  not 
admit  the  horse  to  their  counsels.  Where  he  comes  in 
is  in  the  cavalry  charge — to  be  stabbed  with  bayonets, 
or  disembowelled  with  exploding  shells,  to  lie  in 
helpless  agony  on  the  stricken  field.  He  is  not  reckoned 
in  the  casualty  list.  "  So  many  killed  and  wounded  " 
refers  to  his  masters.  And  yet  being  killed  or  wounded 
may  be  conceived  as  something  even  to  him.  A  cavalry 
man  in  the  midst  of  a  murderous  charge,  when  shots 
were  flying  and  men  falHng,  is  reported  to  have  said  to 

his  comrade,  "  This  is  a  d d  queer  way,  Bill,  of 

earning  a  Uving  !  "  Queer  enough,  truly,  and  to  the 
horse  under  him  not  less  than  the  man.  But  the 
horse's  ideas  on  the  subject  are  not  reported. 

There  are  signs,  however,  that  the  apathy  of  the 
West  in  these  matters  is  breaking  up.  Its  conscience, 
extending  the  range  of  its  mandate,  has  reached  the 

232 


Our  Poor   Relations 

case  of  the  poor  relation,  and  is  asking  all  manner  of 
embarrassing  questions  about  it.  It  is  feeling  the 
appeal  of  this  absolute  helplessness.  These  vast  hosts 
of  sentient  beings,  with  no  votes,  no  appeal  courts,  no 
voice  but  that  of  their  agony,  have  begun  to  haunt  our 
moral  consciousness,  to  stir  our  latent  chivalry.  And, 
in  strict  accord  with  our  energetic  Western  spirit,  the 
movement  once  started  is  going  at  racehorse  speed,  at 
a  pace  which  may  easily  land  us  in  the  wrong  place. 
For  we  are  here  involved  in  some  fundamental  ques- 
tions, for  the  solution  of  which  a  mere  humanistic 
enthusiasm  is  by  no  means  enough. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  question  of  the  slaughter  of 
animals  for  food.  Vegetarianism  is  to-day,  in  Europe 
and  America,  making  an  excellent  case  for  itself.  Man, 
like  the  horse  and  the  elephant,  can  develop  brawn 
and  muscle  on  fruits  and  vegetables  as  well  as  on  flesh 
and  fowl.  And  it  is  cleaner  feeding.  Says  Maeter- 
linck :  *'  It  was  only  yesterday  that  man  began  to 
suspect  he  had  probably  erred  in  the  choice  of  his 
nourishment."  It  is  indeed  a  question  demanding  our 
best  thinking  and  experimenting,  how  these  two  rival 
systems  of  food  act  respectively  on  our  mental  and 
moral  condition.  But  what  are  we  to  say  of  the 
doctrine  that  flesh-eating  is  a  cruelty,  a  crime  against 
the  animal  world  ?  Candidly,  we  do  not  think  the 
argument  holds.  Indeed,  if  we  state  the  question 
between  the  two  systems  as  one  of  the  relative  pleasure 
and  pain  to  the  animals  concerned,  the  verdict  seems  to 
lie  clearly  on  the  other  side.  Not  to  kill  our  sheep  and 
cattle  would  diminish  rather  than  increase  the  sum  of 
animal  enjoyment.     For  if   flesh-eating  ceased  these 

233 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

animals  would  not  be  bred  at  all.  We  should  kill  them, 
if  the  **  bull  "  may  be  permitted,  by  not  permitting 
them  to  be  born.  All  that  sum  of  quiet  enjoyment 
where  the  cattle,  in  the  warm  summer  days,  wander  in 
the  lush  grass,  chew  their  cud,  cool  themselves  in  the 
running  stream,  would  be  non-existent.  Is  not  that  to 
be  considered  ?  *'  But  there  is  a  violent  death  at  the 
end  !  "  Yes,  but  it  is  a  death  which  casts  no  shadow 
before.  It  is  one  bad  quarter  of  an  hour  at  the  finish 
of  innumerable  pleasant  hours.  If  our  herds  passed 
their  lives  in  full  consciousness  of  that  tragic  wind-up 
the  case  would  indeed  be  altered.  But  death  is  not  a 
trouble  of  the  animal  mind.  It  is  we  only  of  earth's 
inhabitants  who  walk  in  that  shadow. 

There  are,  we  repeat,  numbers  of  excellent  arguments 
for  the  vegetarian  cult,  but  this,  we  say,  does  not  seem 
one  of  them.  We  cannot  avoid  death  ;  we  cannot 
avoid  inflicting  it.  If  we  stopped  killing  sheep,  or  rats 
and  mice  and  the  smaller  vermin,  and  allowed  ourselves 
to  be  overrun  by  their  hordes,  we  should  still  be 
slaughterers.  We  slay  by  our  mere  living.  In  our 
blood  the  phagocytes  wage  incessant  war  with  hostile 
germs.     There  are  Waterloos  and  Sedans  inside  us. 

The  argument  here  has  its  bearing  on  the  neighbour- 
question  of  hunting  and  shooting.  We  may  have  our 
own  opinion  as  to  the  quality  of  a  Ufe  which  spends 
itself  in  shooting  grouse  in  one  season  and  hunting 
foxes  in  another.  But  on  this  matter  of  the  animal 
pleasure  and  pain  involved,  what  has  been  just  said 
has  to  be  repeated.  If  a  plebiscite  were  taken  among 
the  birds  as  to  whether  they  preferred  life  with  a  leaden 
dose  at  the  end  to  no  life  at  all,  one  wonders  how  the 

234 


Our  Poor  Relations 

vote  would  go  !  There  are  enthusiasts  who  say  that 
reynard  enjoys  being  hunted.  We  strongly  doubt  it. 
But  if  he  were  not  hunted  he  would  certainly  be 
exterminated  in  some  other  way.  And  again  one 
wonders  what  his  own  vote  would  be  ?  Animals,  if 
they  live  at  all,  must  die  somehow.  Is  the  quick  death 
which  man  inflicts,  a  death  unforeseen  by  its  subject, 
a  greater  addition  to  the  sum  of  pain  than  that  of 
the  slow  decay  which  unassisted  Nature  imposes  ? 

We  have  to  conform  ourselves  here  to  the  system  we 
are  living  under  ;  which  is  not  man's  system,  but 
Nature's.  And  it  is  a  system  which  means,  amongst 
other  things,  death  ;  death  everywhere  on  the  highest 
scale.  It  follows  life  as  the  shadow  follows  the  sun. 
The  animal  world  preys  one  on  another.  Whatever 
humanity  we  may  preach  among  ourselves,  we  cannot 
preach  it  to  tigers  or  crocodiles.  St.  Anthony  may 
harangue  the  fishes  ;  but  "  the  eels  went  on  eeling,  the 
pikes  went  on  stealing."  "  Battles  far  more  deadly 
than  those  of  Gettysburg  or  Gravelotte,"  says  Fiske, 
"  have  been  incessantly  waged  on  every  square  mile  of 
the  earth's  life-bearing  surface  since  hfe  first  began." 
Why  this  is  so  is  hardly  our  affair.  It  is  enough  that 
it  is  so,  and  by  the  ordination  of  another  will,  of  another 
power  than  our  own.  We  have  to  adapt  ourselves  to  it, 
as  we  do  to  gravitation  or  the  weather.  Shall  we  not 
say  with  Marcus  Aurelius  :  "  Even  the  lion's  jaw, 
venom  and  all  things  baleful,  thorns,  mud  or  what  not, 
are  consequents  of  things  grand  and  beautiful !  " 
Plainly  we  are  not  to  make  too  much  of  death.  We 
see  only  one  side  of  it — the  rough  side.  In  relation 
both  to  animals  and  to  man,  may  it  not  be  as  with  the 

235 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

clouds  whose  underside,  the  side  we  see,  is  ever  dark 
and  menacing,  but  whose  upper,  shone  on  always  by 
the  sun,  is  superbly  and  everlastingly  beautiful  ? 

But  if  in  our  dealings  with  animals  we  cannot  avoid 
death,  or  the  infliction  of  it,  we  can  avoid,  and  by  our 
endeavour  prevent,  an  enormous  amount  of  suffering. 
And  it  is  here  that  the  Western  conscience  is  being 
awakened  and  needs  yet  more  to  be  awakened.  We 
want  a  science  of  kilHng.  Hitherto  developments  have 
been  directed  especially  to  our  brother  man.  The  study 
has  been  to  kill  the  largest  numbers  of  him  in  the 
quickest  time.  The  inventor  of  the  newest  shell,  filled 
with  the  highest  explosive,  thinks  only  of  human 
dismemberment  over  the  widest  area  ;  the  question  of 
pain  or  no  pain  is  not  his  affair.  But  we  want  a  new 
science  of  killing,  a  science  devoted  not  to  the  increase  of 
suffering,  but  to  the  minimising,  the  extinction  of  it, 
a  science  which  will  reform  the  slaughter-house,  the 
abattoir  ;  which  will  reduce  the  animal's  bad  quarter  of 
an  hour,  of  which  we  spoke,  to  a  single  moment ;  which 
will  improve  on  Nature's  death  by  slow  decay  by  an 
instantaneous,  painless  extinction.  And  our  children, 
our  youth,  need  a  new  training.  The  **  society  for  the 
prevention  of  cruelty  to  animals  "  should  be  a  society 
of  all  our  homes,  of  all  our  schools.  The  boy,  as  one  of 
his  first  lessons,  should  be  taught  a  code  of  honour  to 
his  poor  relatives.  He  should  be  taught  that  to  torture 
a  frog,  to  pull  off  the  wings  of  a  fly,  is  an  infamy,  a 
thing  to  be  classed  with  lying  and  stealing. 

And  do  not  his  elders  require  to  be  taught  ?  We  need 
a  crusade  against  vicarious  cruelty  ;  the  cruelty  of 
gentle  people  who  permit  and  make  use  of  horrors  that 

236 


Our  Poor  Relations 

they  do  not  see.  Would  ladies  wear  osprey  feathers  if 
they  were  compelled  to  assist  in  the  process  by  which 
they  are  obtained  ?  The  question  of  vivisection  comes, 
we  know,  into  a  different  category.  We  do  not  forget 
that  it  has  been  defended  by  men  of  the  highest 
character — by  a  Playfair,  by  a  Pasteur.  We  do  not 
forget  that  its  end  is  not  the  gratification  of  mere  pride 
or  luxury,  as  in  a  lady's  bird-adornments,  but  the  relief 
of  the  acuter  human  pain,  by  the  infliction  on  a  lower  Hfe 
of  a  lower  pain.  But  has  not  anti-vivisection  a  case, 
and  a  tremendous  one  ?  Would  to  God  its  allegations 
were  unproved,  were  shown  to  be  unfounded  !  There 
is  room  here  for  a  searching  investigation.  Science 
needs  to  prove  the  absolute  necessity  of  its  work  before 
it  erects  its  torture-chambers.  Who  wants  to  benefit 
by  investigations  which  require  that  animals  of  the 
higher  sensitiveness — our  faithful  dog,  often  better  than 
some  humans  in  its  trusts  and  affections — should  be 
taken  to  pieces  bit  by  bit  ;  its  cry  unheeded,  its  long- 
drawn  agony  treated  as  of  no  account  ?  Medical 
research  has  here  entered  on  its  crookedest  road  ;  it  has 
piled  up  against  itself  a  huge  indictment.  The  feeling 
of  the  modern  conscience  against  this  department  of  its 
endeavour  amounts  to  an  entirely  serious  demand  to 
reconsider  its  actions  and  to  set  its  house  in  order. 

The  world  of  our  poor  relations  is  opening  for  us  all 
manner  of  new  questions.  It  does  more  than  accuse 
our  treatment  of  it  ;  it  startles  us  by  its  irruption  into 
our  own  problems  of  hfe  and  religion.  Evolution  has 
lowered  our  pride  of  exclusiveness.  It  has  shown  us 
how  much  closer  we  are  to  it  than  we  thought.  Our 
boasted  reason  is  not  a  monopoly.     Ants  are  reasoners. 

237 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

Bees  invented  the  hive.  This  new-discovered  closer 
relation  is  forcing  itself  into  our  theology.  It  touches 
it  at  all  points.  If  it  is  so  difficult  to  define  where 
animal  ceases  and  man  begins,  why  wonder  at  the 
difficulty  of  showing  where  man  ends  and  God  begins  ? 
In  the  question  of  sin,  too,  no  theologian  of  the  future 
will  be  able  to  discuss  the  problem  without  study  of 
the  animal  consciousness.  And  the  unseen  something, 
the  sense  and  volition  which  guide  an  animal  in  life  and 
depart  from  it  at  death — what  relation  has  that  to  the 
unseen  something  in  us  which  in  like  manner  directs 
our  life  and  shares  this  fate  of  death  ?  What  is  certain 
is  that  our  Gospel  in  all  its  thinking,  in  all  its  doing, 
in  its  theology,  its  ethic  and  its  practice,  must  not  stop 
with  ourselves.  In  its  commands  and  prohibitions, 
in  its  hope  and  its  fear,  in  its  justice  and  its  compassion, 
it  must  include  every  creature  that  God  has  made. 


233 


XXV 

THE  IDEAL  AND  HEALTH 

*'  All  that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  Hfe."  He 
will,  and  a  great  deal  for  his  health.  Medicine  thrives 
on  that  fact.  So  also  does  the  crowd  of  irregular 
and  unlicensed  curers  that  surrounds  the  orthodox 
body.  The  prophets  proclaim  a  time  when  science 
will  abolish  disease.  But  it  has  not  come  yet.  Multi- 
tudes of  us  are  at  half-power.  The  list  of  human 
ailments  makes  the  bulkiest  of  catalogues.  We  are 
sketches  of  men  rather  than  finished  specimens.  You 
never  see  a  perfect  eye  or  hand.  And  the  best-made 
of  us  grow  old.     Everywhere  the  cry  goes  up  : 

'Tis  life,  of  which  our  nerves  are  scant, 
More  hfe  and  fuller  that  we  want. 

Dumas,  in  one  of  his  stories,  has  a  scene  where  Caglios- 
tro  administers  the  elixir  of  hfe  to  a  number  of  aged 
and  decrepit  guests.  He  describes  the  ecstasy  with 
which  the  senile  company  reaHses  once  more  the 
sensations  of  youth.  The  world  still  waits  for  that 
elixir.  When  it  comes,  radium  will  be  a  cheap  com- 
modity beside  it. 

The  question  of  healing  has  of  late  taken  on  some 

239 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

new  features.  Or  rather  let  us  say  that  it  has  witnessed 
the  revival  of  some  old  ones.  After  a  long  lapse  of 
indifference,  the  Church  has  taken  up  the  subject, 
as  belonging  to  its  own  realm.  No  foreign  mission  is 
considered  to  be  properly  equipped  which  has  not 
its  medical  department.  But  things  have  gone 
farther.  We  hear  of  spiritual  therapeutics.  In 
America  and  in  this  country  institutions  are  being 
formed,  under  ecclesiastical  patronage,  where  religion 
is  called  in  as  a  directly  curative  power.  It  is  being 
recognised  that  Christianity  has  a  mission  to  the  body 
as  well  as  to  the  soul.  There  is  nothing  surprising 
about  this.  The  only  wonder  is  that  the  idea  has 
been  in  abej^ance  so  long.  For  the  early  Church 
certainly  stood  for  this.  Amid  all  the  controversies 
concerning  Christian  origins,  a  point  on  which  scholar- 
ship is  unanimous  is  that  the  primitive  Gospel  was, 
amongst  other  things,  a  mission  of  healing.  The  most 
ruthless  critics  admit  that  Jesus  wrought  bodily  cures. 
The  apostoHc  witness,  as  every  Bible-reader  knows, 
tells  the  same  story.  And  the  Church  history  of  the 
early  centuries  has  volumes  of  reports  and  testimonies 
to  the  like  effect.  TertulHan,  Augustine,  Jerome, 
Chrysostom,  teem  with  references.  Conyers  Midleton, 
in  his  famous  "  Inquiry,"  it  is  true,  played  havoc  with 
a  good  deal  of  this  evidence.  But  modern  experience 
makes  us  sure  that  it  could  not  all  have  been  fraud  or 
delusion. 

The  thread  of  testimony  has  been  continued  through 
the  ages.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  declares  that  when 
preaching  the  Crusade  he  witnessed  miracles  of  healing 
which   surpassed   those   recorded   in   the   Scriptures. 

240 


The  Ideal  and  Health 

There  are  the  cures  wrought  at  the  tomb  of  Becket, 
and  later  at  that  of  the  Archbishop  of  Paris.  In  our 
own  time  there  is  Lourdes,  and  more  wonderful  still, 
the  career,  in  the  France  of  the  Second  Empire,  of  that 
humble  priest,  the  Cure  d'Ars,  whose  parish  near 
Lyons  was  for  forty  years  crowded  by  pilgrims  from  all 
parts  of  the  world,  and  the  records  of  whose  healing 
work  fill  two  bulky  volumes. 

But  what  in  our  day  has  most  stirred  the  English- 
speaking  peoples  on  this  subject  has  been  the  emer- 
gence of  the  singular  religious  phenomenon  which 
goes  under  the  name  of  Christian  Science,  and  is 
associated  with  the  career  of  Mrs.  Baker  Eddy.  The 
story  of  that  career,  on  one  side  of  it  at  least,  is  gro- 
tesque and  even  sordid.  The  claims  of  this  latest 
prophetess,  her  triumphs,  her  assumptions  of  authority, 
are  a  revelation  of  human  vanity  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  human  credulity  on  the  other.  Here  is  a 
woman  who  cannot  write  decent  English,  whose 
books  on  their  every  page  give  evidence  of  her  illiteracy, 
who  has  no  faculty  of  consecutive  thought,  but  who, 
while  possessing  not  even  a  tinge  of  Biblical  scholarship, 
offers  to  her  followers  an  interpretation  of  the  Bible 
which  they  are  to  accept  as  inspired  ;  who  prescribes 
their  public  worship  and  their  private  reading  ;  who 
ascribes  to  herself  divine  powers  ;  who  suggests  that 
she  is  the  woman  clothed  with  the  sun  of  the  Book 
of  Revelation  ;  and  who,  like  the  late  Dr.  Dowie, 
whose  methods  so  closely  resembled  her  own,  has 
accumulated  immense  sums  from  the  exploitation  of 
her  disciples'  faith. 

What,  we  have  to  ask,  is  the  meaning  of  this  extra- 

241  Q 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

ordinary  career  ?  Is  it  a  question  of  sheer  fraud  and 
imposture?  Does  Mrs.  Eddy  take  everything  in 
exchange  for  nothing  ?  Assuredly  not.  The  thousands 
of  men  and  women  who  obey  her  have  not  given  up 
their  spiritual  liberty;  have  not  placed  themselves 
under  this  capricious  and  narrowing  despotism  for  no 
equivalent.  The  prophetess  has  based  her  power 
upon  what  is  undoubtedly  a  reality.  She  offers 
people  the  greatest  of  gifts,  the  sense  of  health,  the 
way  to  it.  She  has  made  a  discovery,  as  did  Dowie — 
that  of  the  power  of  her  own  mind  upon  other  minds  ; 
and  of  each  individual  mind,  when  properly  directed, 
over  itself. 

Hypnotism — the  power  of  suggestion  and  of  self- 
suggestion — is  now  a  force  recognised  by  science, 
which  is  diligently  seeking  to  track  its  enormous 
'  possibilities.  The  faculty  of  it,  and  the  susceptibility 
to  it,  reside  in  us  all,  but  in  very  different  degrees. 
And  we  have  to  remember  that  hypnotism  is  only 
one  form,  a  condensed  form,  of  the  mentant}^  the 
mind-force,  which  is  so  much  more  than  itself.  It  is, 
one  may  say,  what  lightning  is  to  electricity.  The 
way  one  mind  influences  another  in  ordinary  life 
might  be  called  a  species  of  hypnotism,  though  it 
employs  none  of  its  forms.  When  a  great  orator 
fills  an  audience  with  his  own  enthusiasm  ;  when  a 
Napoleon  by  a  look,  a  word,  inspires  an  army  to  brave 
wounds  and  death,  one  sees  the  operation  of  a  magnetic 
force.  The  great  leaders  everywhere  are  indeed  full 
of  magnetism.  It  is  the  outflow  of  it,  the  pouring 
upon  others  of  their  own  higher  vitality,  which  con- 
stitutes their  influence.     The  exercise  of  it  is  ever  a 

242 


The  Ideal  and  Health 

mystery.  How  your  mind  moves  your  arm  ;  how 
this  intangible  something  you  call  your  will  can  cause 
this  piece  of  flesh  and  bone  to  lift  itself,  is  as  great 
a  wonder  as  the  one  by  which  Napoleon's  volition 
moved  his  armies. 

The  great  leaders,  we  say,  possess  everywhere  this 
surplus  of  magnetic  force,  and  the  religious  leaders 
especially.  By  it  they  affect  the  mind,  and  also  the 
body.  When  Wesley  preached,  masses  of  people,  as 
his  Journal  tells  us,  fell  down  in  convulsions.  An 
American  doctor  at  a  camp-meeting  revival,  where 
numbers  of  people  were  similarly  affected,  observed 
that  it  was  only  people  in  front,  in  the  eye  of  the 
speaker,  who  showed  these  physical  symptoms.  There 
were  no  cases  amongst  the  people  behind  him.  Now 
the  force  which  produces  such  effects  on  the  body  could 
doubtless  produce  others.  Are  we  not  here,  indeed, 
close  upon  the  secret  of  all  the  healings  in  Church 
history,  ancient  and  modern  ?  It  is  no  irreverence 
surely  to  say  that  Jesus  wrought  His  cures  by  this 
power.  He  used  the  forces  that  were  to  His  hand. 
As  He  nourished  His  body  by  eating  and  drinking, 
and  breathing  the  air  around  Him,  so  He  called  on 
the  forces  that  lay  within  Him,  natural  we  may  say, 
but  supereminent,  to  accomplish  the  healing  effects  of 
which  we  read. 

This  force,  under  different  names,  has  been  in 
exercise  from  the  dawn  of  history.  India  is  full  of  it. 
The  cult  there  of  mentality,  as  a  power  over  bodily 
conditions,  has  been  carried  to  extraordinary  lengths. 
The  stories  of  the  yogi,  of  the  initiates,  which  come 
to  us  from  so  many  sources,  are  assuredly  not  without 

243 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

foundation.  The  present  writer  has  listened  to 
accounts  from  European  observers  long  resident  in 
India  which  seem  almost  incredible  to  the  Western 
mind.  And  let  it  be  here  observed  that  powers  of  this 
order,  while  exercised,  as  history  shows,  often  by  the 
noblest  natures,  and  for  the  noblest  purposes,  are  not 
in  themselves  necessarily  moral  or  spiritual.  They 
are  just  powers,  and  their  morality  or  otherwise 
depends  on  the  will  that  uses  them.  It  may  be  with 
them  as  with  music  or  speech,  which  may  inspire  the 
soul  to  angelic  or  diabolic  deeds. 

Forces  of  this  kind  have,  there  is  no  question,  been 
possessed  at  times  by  people  of  no  eminence  of  mora] 
character ;  often  where  morality  has  been  entirely 
wanting.  As  illustration  take  the  marvellous  story 
of  Alexander  of  Abonotichos  so  inimitably  told  by 
Lucian.  As  we  follow  the  career  of  this  Dowie  of  the 
second  century,  while  he  passes  in  triumphal  procession 
from  one  city  of  the  empire  to  another,  amassing 
enormous  sums,  indulging  in  every  luxury,  followed 
by  swarms  of  devoted  worshippers,  who  regarded  him 
as  a  kind  of  god,  we  see  in  him  the  most  salient  example 
of  a  gifted  being,  full  of  magnetisms,  of  hypnotisms, 
possessing  men  for  the  time  with  the  vitality  which 
surged  up  in  himself,  yet  using  his  power  for  ignoble 
and  purely  selfish  ends. 

It  is  this  force  which,  in  its  original  state  of  raw 
mentality,  or  in  its  specialised  development  in  hypno- 
tism and  suggestion,  in  our  day  has  come  so  pro- 
minently into  view  as  a  religious  factor.  Not  that 
religion  has  discovered  it.  That  has  been  the  work 
of   outside  investigators.     In   France   especially  the 

244 


The  Ideal  and  Health 

physiological  phenomena  of  hypnotism — such  as  the 
exteriorisation  of  sensibility,  by  which  pin-pricks  at  a 
yard  away  from  the  body  are  felt  within  the  body  ; 
by  which  surgical  operations  are  performed  without 
any  pain  to  the  patient,  and  where  even  sight  is  made 
possible  without  eyes — these  phenomena  are  obtained 
and  observed  by  scientists  who  have  no  interest  in 
religion.  But  these  results  are  reacting  in  every  way 
upon  religion.  They  explain  numbers  of  mysteries 
connected  with  it  in  past  ages.  They  are  a  new 
witness  to  reHgion's  supreme  contention,  that 
the  soul  is  greater  than  the  body,  rules  the  body, 
makes  it,  and  may  survive  it.  They  explain  also 
what  we  so  need  to  understand  to-day,  that  the 
exploitation  of  these  powers  in  the  name  of  religion 
by  persons  of  undeveloped  moral  character  may, 
as  we  are  now  witnessing,  lay  the  foundation  of 
spiritual  despotisms  of  the  most  degrading  and 
hurtful  kind. 

What  we  need  to-day  is  the  true  faith-healing,  a 
healing  dependent  not  on  prophets  or  prophetesses, 
but  upon  God  and  ourselves.  For  faith  to-day,  as 
in  the  day  of  Jesus,  can  move  mountains.  It  cures* 
The  world  is  to  you  what  you  think  it,  and  if  you 
think  it  good,  it  is  good.  When  you  believe  in  the 
Divine  Presence  ;  when  you  find  God  with  you  here 
and  now ;  when  you  take  every  event,  however 
gruesome-seeming,  direct  from  His  hand  ;  when  you 
look  through  and  beyond  present  appearances  to  the 
reality  beneath — a  reality  which  is  infinite  and  un- 
failing— you  achieve  an  inner  serenity  which  is  the 
best  of  all  physicians.     A  heart  at  rest  in  God  keeps 

243 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

the  blood  in  circulation,  helps  you  to  breathe  freely, 
gives  relish  to  your  daily  bread,  makes  your  sleep 
sound,  floods  your  nature  with  the  sunshine  in  which 
it  grows  and  thrives.  This  faith  does  not  ask  for 
impossibles.  It  accepts  the  human  conditions.  It 
accepts  the  end  and  what  precedes  it.  It  knows  you 
cannot  be  cured  of  being  seventy  years  old.  But  it 
knows  old  age  and  death  as  God-given  conditions, 
and  therefore  wholesome  and  hopeful  ones.  It  looks 
to  the  end  as  what  will  be  the  finest  of  healings, 
of  restorations. 

BeUeve  in  God,  we  say,  and  in  His  order,  and  then 
believe  in  yourself.  Why  rush  to  this  prophet  or 
that  ?  What  is  it  you  want  from  them  ?  Can  you 
change  your  nature  into  theirs  ?  At  most  all  you 
gain  here  is  a  second-hand  virtue.  Whereas  what 
you  need  is  to  develop  your  own.  It  is  what  is  in 
you,  not  in  them,  that  is  your  concern.  Have  faith 
in  your  capacity,  and  do  not  listen  to  your 
incapacity.  The  whole  secret  is  there.  "  When 
I  am  weak,  then  am  I  strong,"  says  the  apostle. 
The  sense  of  his  weakness  surged  up  in  him,  but  he 
refused  to  accept  its  verdict.  He  acted  instead 
on  the  supposition  that  he  was  strong ;  took  on 
tasks  that  demanded  strength,  and  lo  !  he  could  do 
them  ! 

It  is  becoming  recognised  in  physiology  that  function 
precedes  structure  ;  in  the  organic  life  it  is  function 
which  creates  structure.  In  other  words,  it  is  the  soul 
that  makes  the  body  ;  it  is,  as  it  were,  the  inner 
purpose  and  aspiration  that  fashions  the  organ  of  it. 
BeHeving  in  sight  helped  to  make  the  eye.    And  it  is 

246 


The  Ideal  and  Health 

by  your  willing  that  you  are  making  yourself  to-day.  ^ 
Will  to  be  higher  than  you  are,  and  you  will  daily 
become  higher.  Act  on  the  supposition  of  your  inner 
strength  and  you  will  do  strong  things.  "  All  things 
are  possible  to  him  that  believeth."  This  is  the  ideal 
healing. 


247 


XXVI 

THE   POWERS   OF   DARKNESS 

The  intermixture  in  our  life  of  the  material  and  the 
spiritual  has  no  more  striking  illustration  than  in  the 
influence  upon  us  of  darkness.  The  "  power  of 
darkness  "  is  a  real  power,  and  that  apart  from  any 
theological  considerations.  The  revolution  of  this  planet 
on  its  axis,  which  for  a  certain  number  of  hours  out 
of  the  twenty-four  shuts  from  us  the  light  of  day> 
has  had  in  every  age  the  profoundest  effect  on  man's 
inner  states.  It  has  told  enormously  on  his  religion. 
It  has  created  a  vocabulary — a  very  sinister  one. 
It  Hes  at  the  origin  of  fear.  It  binds  the  reason 
and  sets  loose  the  imagination.  We  are  not  the 
same  at  midnight  as  at  midday.  The  child  mind, 
and  the  savage  mind,  which  is  so  closely  akin  to  it^ 
are  reawakened  in  us.  "  I  do  not  believe  in  ghosts," 
said  Fontenelle,  "  but  I  am  afraid  of  them."  We 
can  all  feel  with  him  there.  As  you  traverse  the 
deep  wood  alone,  with  the  shadows  creeping  round 
you,  the  scene  becomes  spectral.  The  trees  with  their 
swaying  branches  seem  alive.  There  are  weird  whis- 
perings, uncanny  shapes.  Old  legends  leap  to  the 
mind,  appealing  to  the  primitive  man  in  you.     You 

248 


The  Powers   of  Darkness 

are  away  from  the  twentieth  century,  back  in  a  haunted 
world.  Night  is  the  time  when  villainies  are  hatched, 
when  assassins  creep  forth,  when  gloom  and  melan- 
choly find  their  hour,  when  the  worst  asserts  itself. 

The  opposition  of  day  and  night,  we  say,  has  woven 
itself  into  the  world's  rehgion  ;  has  been  the  creator  of 
much  of  it.  In  the  literature  of  every  creed  darkness 
is  the  symbol  of  evil,  and  light  of  the  good.  Heaven 
is  sunlight,  hell  the  blackness  of  darkness.  For 
the  Manichaeans,  for  the  Persian  Zoroastrians,  history 
is  the  eternal  conflict  of  the  embattled  hosts  of  light 
on  the  one  side,  and  of  darkness  on  the  other.  Amongst 
savage  tribes,  from  the  Eskimos  of  the  polar  snows 
to  the  black  races  of  Central  Africa,  there  are  rites 
and  incantations  for  the  w^arding  off  of  the  spirits 
of  evil  that  are  abroad  in  the  dark*  The  witches  and 
warlocks  of  the  North,  whose  antics  form  the  scenes  of 
Burns's  immortal  "  Tam  o' Shanter,"  chose  midnight 
for  their  revels.  But  amid  primitive  tribes  and  the 
earher  civilisations  darkness  was  not  wholly  connected 
with  evil.  It  was  the  condition  of  mysticism  and  of 
the  exercise  of  mysterious  spiritual  powers.  The 
oracle  sat  in  the  gloom  of  the  cave.  The  crowning 
rite  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  was  the  admittance  at 
night  into  the  innermost  sanctuary  of  the  temple. 
The  Australian  savage  goes  to  the  graveyard  at  night 
to  communicate  with  the  spirits  of  the  departed. 
Amongst  the  Tuareks  of  the  Sahara,  when  the  men 
depart  on  an  expedition,  their  women  go  at  night 
to  the  graves  of  their  dead  to  obtain  telepathic  com- 
munication with  their  distant  husbands.  It  is  at 
**  the  witching  hour  "  that  Hamlet  sees  his  father's 

249 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

ghost.     The  modern  medium  is  in  line  with  all  this 
when  he  darkens  the  room  for  his  seance. 

The  materialism  which  ruled  in  science  and  largely 
in  philosophy  during  the  later  Victorian  period  made 
havoc   with   notions   of   this   kind.     It   proposed   to 
depopulate    the    unseen   universe.     Everything    was 
comprised  in  the  ideas  of  law  and  uniformity,  of  force 
and  matter.     The  action  on  men  of  invisible  person- 
alities was  scouted  as  a  remnant  of  savagery.     There 
might  conceivably  be  inhabitants  of  Mars,  but  the 
Miltonic  idea   that   "  milHons   of   spiritual   creatures 
walk  the  earth  unseen,  both  when  we  sleep  and  when 
we  wake,"  was  only  a  poet's  dream.     The  immense 
scope  given  to  personalism  in  Christianity  was  seized 
upon  as  its  weakest  side.     The  New  Testament  accounts 
of  demoniac  possession  and  of  exorcism  ;   its  doctrine 
of  maleficent  forces,  of  "  principalities  and  powers," 
of  the  "  prince  of  darkness,"  were  held  up  as  evidences  of 
its   legendary   and  non-scientific   character.     In   Hke 
manner   the   witchcraft   stories   of  the   Middle   Ages 
were  treated  as  pure  fiction,  the  product  of  a  darkness 
of  ignorance,  which  had  vanished  in  the  light  of  science. 
Luther's  encounter  with  the  devil  was  of  the  same 
order  of  credibility  as  Goethe's  account  of  the  witches' 
festival  on  the  Brocken  in  Faust, 

The  pendulum  swung  to  its  farthest  reach  in  that 
direction,  and  now  we  are  witnessing  a  curious  reac- 
tion. And  the  remarkable  thing  in  this  counter 
movement  is  that  it  has  come — not  so  much  from 
theology,  which  seemed  specially  attacked,  as  from 
science  itself.  It  is  from  that  empirical  observation, 
the  sheer  study  of  facts  and  occurrences,  on  which 

250 


The  Powers  of  Darkness 

science  bases  its  conclusions,  that  a  new  theory  of 
personality,  of  its  qualities  and  possibilities,  of  its 
presence  and  potency  in  hitherto  unexpected  places, 
has  been  established,  which  is  making  all  the  difference 
to  the  modern  outlook.  Psychology  is  upsetting 
the  old  materialism.  The  researches  of  a  Lombroso, 
a  Myers,  a  Richet,  a  Crookes,  a  Flammarion,  a  Lodge, 
a  Wallace — names  that  stand  foremost  amongst 
modern  scientists — have  produced  a  mass  of  evidence 
which  it  is  impossible  to  ignore,  on  the  soul's  hitherto 
undreamed-of  capacities.  Under  hypnotism  there  are 
cases  of  seeing  without  eyes  and  hearing  without  ears. 
Under  its  influence  the  old  tricks  of  witchcraft  are 
reproduced.  It  used  to  be  a  favourite  accusation,  for 
which  many  a  witch  has  been  burned,  that  the 
offender  had  made  an  image  of  wax  of  the  person 
aimed  at,  and  by  running  pins  into  the  image  had  caused 
dire  pain  to  the  victim.  To-day  this  very  thing  has 
been  accomplished  by  Paris  specialists.  Our  fore- 
fathers, it  seems,  were,  in  these  matters,  not  quite 
such  fools  as  we  had  imagined. 

Not  less  remarkable  is  the  new  evidence  con- 
cerning possession.  That  the  same  organism  can 
find  room  inside  it  at  times  for  entirely  separate  per- 
sonalities is  a  fact  which  we  must  accept  as  proved. 
Myers  long  ago  hazarded  the  suggestion  that  in  addition 
to  the  dominating  "  ego  "  which  we  recognised  as  our 
special  personahty,  there  were  other  half-formed 
ones  struggling  for  expression,  and  which  might  con- 
ceivably take  its  place.  But  that  is  not  the  whole 
account  of  the  matter.  If  human  testimony  is  to  be 
regarded  as  of  any  account  at  all,  then  we  shall  have 

251 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

to  admit  the  evidence  of  eye-witnesses  who  speak 
of  persons  in  the  trance  state  as  writing  and  speaking 
languages  of  which  they  had  no  previous  knowledge, 
exhibiting  qualities  and  dispositions  quite  foreign 
to  their  nature,  revealing  secrets  unknown  to  any  but 
the  person  implicated,  and  predicting  events  which 
afterwards  came  to  pass.  Stainton  Moses,  an  Anglican 
clergyman,  very  often  found  in  his  automatic  writings 
atheistic  and  Satanic  sentiments.  We  may  take  this 
for  what  it  is  worth.  Perhaps  there  was  some  spice 
of  Satanism  in  his  composition,  as  there  seems  to  be  in 
the  best  of  us,  and  this  may  have  surged  up  from 
his  subconscious  self  when  in  these  abnormal  con- 
ditions. We  are  incHned  to  give  more  weight  to  the 
testimony  of  a  missionary  in  North  China,  well  known 
to  the  present  writer,  a  man  of  exceptional  abiHty 
and  knowledge  of  Chinese  conditions,  who,  in  a  recent 
correspondence,  declares  demoniac  possession  to  be 
the  only  adequate  explanation  of  phenomena  he  has 
witnessed  there. 

Our  universe  is  clearly  not  so  simple  an  affair 
as  naturalism  has  painted  it.  The  Biichner  theory 
of  matter  and  force  as  the  origin  and  controller  of 
things  is  everywhere  breaking  down.  Space  is  not  so 
empty  as  it  seemed.  Nature  may  care  even  less 
for  a  vacuum  than  we  imagined.  Why  may  not  our 
earth,  and  all  the  cosmic  realm  around  it,  be  sphered 
and  insphered  with  invisible  being  ?  Who  are  we 
to  claim  that  we  see  all  there  is  to  see  ?  Modern 
psychological  discovery  has  made  science  turn  with 
a  new  attention  to  the  testimony  of  the  past.  The 
evidence  on  these  themes  of  primitive  peoples  the 

252 


The   Powers   of  Darkness 

world  over — its  unbroken  continuity  and  its  marvellous 
unanimity — are  facts  to  which  competent  observation 
is  every  day  giving  more  weight. 

And  if  we  have  to  make  room  in  our  minds  for  this 
larger,  intenser  area  of  Hfe  and  personality,  what 
reason  have  we  for  denying  that  the  possible  unseen  life 
around  us  may  be  of  every  variety  of  moral  complexion, 
ranging  here  from  heights  above  us  to  abysses  beneath 
us  ?  Our  own  humanity  is  surely  too  signal  an  example 
of  this  possibiHty  to  permit  any  dogmatism  of  negation 
on  the  point.  Angelic  and  diabolic,  who  shall  say 
that  the  words  do  not  stand  for  realities  ?  That  ancient 
scheme  of  things  which  represented  man  on  his 
progress  through  this  life  as  surrounded  by  invisible 
hosts,  "  principalities  and  powers,  mustering  their 
unseen  array,"  some  seeking  to  lift  him  to  their  own 
height  of  purity,  and  others  to  draw  him  to  their 
baser  levels — have  we  quite  done  with  it  ?  We  do 
not  think  so.  It  has  something  to  say  for  itself. 
We  prefer  it  vastly  to  that  which  represents  us  as  a 
sordid  herd  of  chance-begotten  creatures  stumbling 
across  our  span  of  existence  to  the  nothingness  from 
whence  we  came. 

Yet  while  we  speak  of  evil,  of  "  the  hour  and  power 
of  darkness,"  we  may  face  its  questions  without  fear, 
still  more  without  despair.  The  physical  darkness 
is  an  ordered  one,  and  we  owe  much  to  it.  You 
cannot  develop  the  photographic  plate  without  its 
aid.  It  gives  us  sleep  and  refreshment.  It  discloses 
to  us  the  stars.  It  creates  in  us  moods  and  ideas 
which  are  necessary  to  the  wholeness  of  life.  The 
dark  hour  of  Jesus  was  hard  to  endure,  but  it  wrought 

253 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

imperishable  and  glorious  results.  And  it  passed  into 
day.  And  as  to  evil,  there  is  no  evil  in  things.  The 
world  is  made  of  good  stuff.  Evil  is  in  persons, 
and  with  them  we  take  it — as  did  Aristotle,  and 
the  Greek  Fathers,  and  Scotus  of  Erigena  and  the 
mystics — as  a  negative  rather  than  a  positive,  as  a 
relativity,  as  a  want,  a  defect  from  the  good.  And 
it  is  there  to  be  mastered  by  the  good — the  sure 
and  only  goal  of  created  being. 

Truly,  this  human  life  of  ours  is  no  petty  campaign. 
It  is  a  warfare  against  forces  visible  and  invisible,  a  great 
fight  with  infinite  issues.  Yet  humble,  earnest  souls 
may  go  into  it  without  fear.  They  are  on  the  winning 
side.  They  that  are  for  us  are  more  than  they  that 
are  against  us.  The  kingdom  of  Hght  will  outlast 
the  kingdom  of  darkness.  Good  is  mightier  than  evil. 
For  the  weapons  of  our  warfare  are  not  carnal  but 
spiritual,  mighty  to  the  pulling  down  of  strongholds. 


254 


XXVII 

OUR    UNUSED    SELVES 

Professor  Royce,  of  Harvard,  in  one  of  his  philo- 
sophical lectures,  speaks  thus  :  **  When  I  seek  my 
own  goal  I  am  seeking  for  the  whole  of  myself.  In 
so  far  as  my  aim  is  the  absolute  completion  of  my 
selfhood,  my  goal  is  identical  with  the  whole  Hfe  of 
God."  It  is  a  large  and  lofty  saying,  which  we  shall 
not  attempt  here  to  live  up  to.  If  it  does  not  prove 
anything,  it  suggests  much.  It  sets  one  thinking  on 
that  part  of  our  uncompleted  self  which  we  may 
speak  of  as  the  unused.  There  is  a  vast  acreage  of 
our  inner  estate  that  has  never  been  touched  by  the 
plough.  And  there  are  other  portions  of  us,  once 
worked  over,  that  have  fallen  out  of  cultivation. 
The  survey  of  this  unoccupied  region  is  full  of  interest, 
sometimes  of  a  strangely  pathetic  interest. 

Beginning  at  the  lowest  point,  it  is  worth  noting 
that  both  in  the  physical  and  the  moral  realm  there 
are  parts  of  us  that  are  there  simply  as  survivals 
of  an  earlier  and  a  lower  state.  They  are  unused 
because  we  have  outgrown  them.  Our  bodily  frame 
is,  amongst  other  things,  a  museum  full  of  the  relics 
of  the  past.  The  male  human  carries  in  his  breast 
rudimentary  mammae  for  which,  whatever  part  they 
played  in  his  earlier  development,  he  has  no  more 

255 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

use.  There  are  traces  in  us  of  a  gill  formation  for 
breathing  in  the  water.  And  our  caudal  vertebrae 
suggest  a  forefather  who  carried  a  tail.  No  discoveries 
of  flint  instruments  or  of  prehistoric  remains  can  com- 
pare, as  evidences  of  antiquity,  with  these  weird  bits 
of  our  anatomy  which  we  carry  with  us  to-day.  They 
take  us  back  into  the  abysses  of  geological  time. 

That,  however,  is  an  affair  of  science.  Closely 
associated  is  a  deeper  affair  of  morals.  It  is  not  only 
the  body  that  tells  of  this  early  relation  to  "  monsters 
of  the  prime,  that  tare  each  other  in  their  slime." 
There  is  also  a  mental  relation.  We  have  risen  from 
beasthood  into  manhood,  but  we  still  carry  some  of 
the  beast  in  us.  Good  Christian  men,  peaceable 
citizens,  who  love  God  and  their  neighbour,  who 
desire  to  spend  themselves  in  the  service  of  their  kind, 
have  in  them,  and  they  know  it,  far  down  in  the  con- 
sciousness, elemental  passions  whose  possibilities  they 
sometimes  wonder  at  and  shudder  at.  They  form 
an  unused  part  of  them,  but  might  there  not  be  cir- 
cumstances where  they  would  suddenly  flame  into 
use  ?  We  are  not  yet  past  the  war  stage,  though 
one  hopes  we  are  passing  it.  But  think  what  a  battle 
brings  out  !  Take  as  illustration — one  might  cite 
a  thousand — this  bit  from  Carlyle's  description  of  the 
battle  of  Zorndorf  in  the  Seven  Years'  War :  /*  Seldom 
was  there  seen  such  a  charge  ;  issuing  in  such  deluges 
of  wreck,  of  chaotic  flight,  or  chaotic  refusal  to  fly. 
The  Seidlitz  Cavalry  went  sabring  till,  for  very  fatigue, 
they  gave  it  up,  and  could  no  more.  .  .  .  The 
Russian  infantry  stood  to  be  sabred,  in  the  above 
manner,  as  if  they  had  been  dead  men.     More  remote 

256 


Our  Unused  Selves 

from  Seidlitz  the}^  break  open  the  sutlers'  brandy  casks, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  get  roaring  drunk  ;  soldiers  flop 
down  to  drink  it  from  the  puddles  ;  furiously  remon- 
strate with  their  oihcers  and  kill  a  good  many  of  them. 
A  frightful  blood-bath,  brandy-bath,  and  chief  nucleus 
of  chaos  then  extant  above  ground."  And  so  the 
horrible  story  goes  on  ;  one,  we  say,  of  a  thousand 
such.  And  yet  all  the  people  engaged  in  this  devil's 
business  were  mothers'  sons,  little  innocent  lads,  here 
in  Russia,  there  in  Prussia,  who  grew  to  manhood, 
loving  their  homes  and  families,  striving  for  an  honest 
livelihood,  and  then  at  the  will  of  their  rulers  sent 
off  to  march  against  other  mothers'  sons,  who  also 
loved  their  homes  and  their  kind,  and  with  whom  they 
had  no  quarrel  !  Alas  !  the  beast  is  in  us  yet.  We  are 
still  close  to  these  horrors.  Men  still  talk  of  war. 
But  a  time  is  coming  when  the  relics  of  our  guns 
and  bayonets,  our  whole  slaughter  apparatus,  will  be 
looked  upon  by  our  successors  with  as  strange  a  feeHng 
as  that  with  which  we  contemplate  the  flesh  and  blood 
survivals  of  our  apehood. 

The  beast  in  us,  then,  let  us  hope,  is  destined  to 
be  less  and  less  used.  But  observe  now  another  and 
a  higher  order  of  our  inner  machinery  that  is  also  for 
the  present  quite  idle.  Our  life,  when  its  earthly 
history  has  been  completed,  will  be  found  to  consist 
of  a  given  line  of  experiences.  ' *  That,"  we  might 
say,  in  summing  it  up,  **  is  all  that  has  happened  to 
me."  But  outside  that  thin  line  Hes  the  boundless 
region  of  what  might  have  happened.  We  have 
been  this,  but  how  many  other  things  we  could  have 
been  !     And  what  we  want  here  to  note  is  that  we 

257  ^ 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

have  in  us  the  apparatus  for  receiving,  tabulating, 
recording  in  our  consciousness  all  the  infinite  sum 
of  things  that  might  have  happened  to  us,  and  did  not. 
Here  is  an  unused  machinery !  How  would  you 
feel  were  you  made  a  millionaire  to-morrow ;  or 
condemned  to-morrow  to  be  hanged  ;  or  found  yourself 
to-morrow  charging  a  battery,  with  men  falling  in 
swathes  around  you  ?  You  do  not  know  ;  but  there 
is  a  machinery  within  you  that  knows  ;  that  is  pre- 
pared to  produce  with  hairsbreadth  accuracy  the 
appropriate  sensation  for  these  happenings  on  the 
dial-plate  of  your  consciousness.  It  will,  probably, 
never  be  used,  because  you  will  probably  never  have 
these  experiences.  You  have  only  one  line  of  hap- 
penings, but  there  are  a  million  other  lines  to  east 
and  west  of  you.  Your  actual  self  so  far  is  one  ;  but 
your  possible  self  is  a  million  times  that  one.  Will 
this  unused  in  us  remain  always  unused  ?  Or  may 
it  not  be  that  our  future  existence  may  be  occupied  in 
gathering  up  one  by  one  that  vast  sum  of  our 
unrealised  personality  ? 

Of  these  unused  portions  of  us  there  are  some 
whose  history  is  specially  pathetic.  There  are  multi- 
tudes of  us  made  for  love,  but  who  have  never  found 
their  love.  The  music  in  them  has  not  met  its 
awakener.  All  the  tendernesses  of  love,  its  sweet 
and  exquisite  vocabulary,  are  there  locked  up  in 
them,  rusting,  decaying,  a  capital  never  put  out  at 
interest.  The  homes  that  live  in  imagination,  but 
are  never  founded,  the  kiss  that  has  never  been 
given,  the  inner  hunger  that  is  never  appeased,  the 
dream  of  the  lonely  man   who    sits   at  his  solitary 

258 


Our  Unused  Selves 

hearth  and  thinks  of  the  wife,  of  the  children  that 
might  have  been  ;  who 

Sees  their  unborn  faces  shine 
Beside  the  never-lighted  fire 

— these  are  the  unspoken  tragedies  of  life. 

Closely  akin  to  them  are  the  sorrows  of  bereavement. 
Who  has  sounded  the  heart  of  a  mother  who  has  lost 
from  her  arms  the  infant  of  days  ;  or  the  Httle  one 
whose  prattle  has  been  the  home's  sweetest  music  ? 
Now  her  motherhood  seems  wasted  ;  gone  all  the 
promised  delight  of  watching  the  growth  and  unfolding 
of  this  precious  flower  of  life  that  had  been  given  her. 
Is  there  any  pang  comparable  to  that  with  which  we 
look  upon  the  face  of  a  dead  child  ? 

Fold  the  hands  across  the  breast 

So,  as  when  he  knelt  to  pray, 
Leave  him  to  his  dreamless  rest ; 

Baby  died  to-day. 

What  she  would  have  been  to  him,  and  he  to  her  when 
he  was  ten,  twenty  ;  the  strong  man  who  should  close 
her  eyes  at  the  end,  all  gone  and  lost,  with  no  use  for 
her  shut-up  treasury  of  love. 

In  studying  this  side  of  life  one  might  easily  exclaim 
against  its  mystery,  its  hardness.  And,  indeed,  the 
sting  of  it  would  be  at  times  almost  unbearable  were 
our  view  shut  up  to  the  sphere  of  the  visible.  But  to 
enlightened  eyes,  the  very  exposure  of  our  nature  to 
crushing  griefs  of  this  sort  is  a  sure  evidence  of  our 
larger  destiny.  Were  we  of  and  for  this  world  only, 
we  should  have  been  fitted  to  its  hmitations.  To  the 
ox  that  grazes  in   the  field,   the  field  there  is  all  he 

259 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

wants.  But  our  field  is  not  big  enough  for  us.  It 
satisfies  only  the  beginning  of  our  wants.  Grief  and 
disappointment  are  a  capital  we  carry  in  us,  that 
has  to  be  put  out  to  a  wider  sphere. 

God  gives  us  love.    Something  to  love 

He  lends  us  ;  but  when  love  is  grown 
To  ripeness,  that  on  which  it  throve 

Falls  off,  and  love  is  left  alone. 

In  noble  natures,  taught  of  the  Spirit,  earthly  affections, 
robbed  of  their  first  satisfaction,  are  etherealised. 
They  become  a  world's  possession.  Such  live  no 
longer  for  one,  but  for  humanity.  The  world's  finest 
work  is  done  by  people  whose  hearts  have  bled.  And 
beneath  it  all  they  carry  in  them  the  conviction  that 
what  they  have  experienced  here  is  only  the  beginning, 
the  training  of  their  being  for  results  and  achievements 
that  are  not  yet  disclosed. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  this  theme  which  is  also 
not  without  its  pathos.  You  will  find  often  a  side  of 
a  man's  nature  that  seems  unused,  but  is  not  really  so. 
It  takes  apparently  several  generations  to  produce  a 
great  man.  Meanwhile  in  his  forebears  what  hopes 
and  aspirations  that  are  unrealised  in  their  own  lives 
A  Mendelssohn,  a  Rossini,  a  Bach,  had  behind  them 
fathers  full  of  music,  but  who  were  not  great  musicians. 
John  Wesley  had  for  ancestry  on  both  sides,  a  line 
here  of  Anglicans,  there  of  Puritans,  to  whom  religion 
was  of  the  first  importance,  but  they  were  none  of 
them,  in  the  great  sense,  religious  leaders.  Their  story 
is  like  that  of  the  geyser,  issuing  from  a  stream  that 
runs  for  a  long  way  underground,  ere  it  leaps  up  in 
one  magnificent  exhibition.     Their  use  is  to  nourish 

260 


Our  Unused   Selves 

in  them  a  life  that  waits  for  its  final  expression.  But 
after  all,  how  great  a  business  is  this  !  How  great  a 
thing  is  it  for  us  of  humble  abiHties  to  cherish  in  our 
lives  a  noble  purpose,  to  train  and  discipline  our 
nature  along  the  ways  of  God  !  We  have  come  to 
nothing  apparently.  But  what  is  in  us  will  issue 
in  something.  No  atom  of  truth  and  goodness  that  is 
there  but,  faithfully  conserved,  will  have  its  fullest 
value  realised,  if  not  now  and  here,  somewhen  and 
somewhere  ! 

There  are  aspects  of  this  theme  which  should  be 
for  us  at  once  a  reproach  and  a  stimulus.  Most  of  us 
have  failed  to  use  half  our  machinery.  Diderot  has 
this  note  on  a  passage  of  Seneca.  The  Stoic  writer 
says  :  *'  Pass  in  review  your  days  and  years  ;  take 
account  of  them.  Say  how  often  you  have  allowed 
them  to  be  stolen  by  a  creditor,  a  mistress,  a  patron, 
a  cUent  !  How  many  people  have  been  allowed  to 
pillage  your  hfe,  while  you  were  not  even  aware  that 
you  were  being  robbed  !  "  Diderot  says  :  "I  have 
never  read  this  chapter  without  blushing  ;  it  is  my 
history."  It  is,  indeed,  a  common  history.  In  the 
time  we  have  wasted  we  might  have  enriched  ourselves 
with  arts,  with  skills,  with  languages  and  literatures 
which  are  now  all  outside  us.  What  studies  have  been 
dropped !  Sydney  Smith  says  that  during  his  school 
days  he  must  have  made  some  ten  thousand  Latin 
verses,  and  in  after  Hfe  had  never  made  another.  He 
did  not  think  it  worth  while,  and  was  probably  right 
in  that.  But  what  solid  acquisitions,  of  which  in 
earlier  years  we  had  laid  the  foundation,  are  now 
missing  in  us  from  sheer  neglect !     We  could  have  been 

261 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

so  much  more  than  we  are.  The  faculty  was  there, 
waiting  to  be  used,  but  the  will  was  wanting.  The 
thief  of  indolence  has  come  in  and  robbed  us  at  leisure. 
Who  can  read  these  lines  of  William  Watson  without 
a  pang  of  self-reproach  ? 

So  on  our  souls  the  visions  rise 

Of  that  fair  life  we  never  led  : 
They  flash  a  splendour  past  our  eyes. 

We  start,  and  they  are  fled  j 
They  pass  and  leave  us  with  blank  gaze. 
Resigned  to  our  ignoble  days. 

Let  us  not  accept  that  last  line.  There  are  habits 
we  can  still  break  off,  and  better  ones  that  we  can 
acquire.  Cato  learned  Greek  at  seventy  ;  at  eighty 
Michel  Angelo  was  still  a  learner.  The  universe,  time, 
and  yourself — here  are  three  factors  of  which  we 
are  to  make  the  best.  Immense  are  the  possibilities 
if  only  we  will  attend  to  that  last  factor  ! 

The  unused  in  ourselves  and  our  fellows  is  an 
enormous  capital  that  has  yet  to  be  worked.  What 
a  different  England  shall  we  have,  for  instance,  when 
among  the  masses  of  our  people  the  faculty  of  beauty, 
in  all  its  phases,  has  been  developed ;  when  the 
appreciation  of  the  beautiful  has  been  expressed  in  the 
build  of  our  towns,  of  our  public  edifices,  of  our  home 
interiors  !  What  a  different  England  when  the  children 
of  our  criminal  classes,  caught  early,  and  placed  under 
wholesome  conditions,  have  had  the  brute  in  them 
closed  down,  and  the  spiritual  faculty  brought  into 
play  ! 

And  this  last  suggestion  raises  our  final  point. 
The  irreligious  man,  to  whatever  class  he  belongs,  is 

262 


Our   Unused   Selves 

going  about  with  the  best  part  of  him  unused.  It  is 
there  in  him,  but  dormant ;  dormant  this  richest 
portion  of  him,  source  of  life's  highest  joys,  of  its  most 
enduring  strength.  For  never  do  we  come  to  our 
true  self  till  we  have  reached  the  hidden  life  of  God. 
It  is  the  Church's  eternal  task  to  develop  in  man 
that  spiritual  nature  which  is  at  present  only  in  its 
germ,  but  whose  growth  and  dominance,  towards 
which  all  the  great  inner  forces  are  working,  will 
secure  for  our  race  its  lost  paradise. 


263 


XXVIII 
FAILURE   AND    THE    IDEAL 

Disraeli  speaks  somewhere  of  **the  hell  of  failure." 
And  there  are  times  in  the  hfe  of  most  of  us  when  the 
word  has  not  seemed  too  strong.  From  the  lad  who, 
after  the  long-worked-for  examination,  finds  his  name 
missing  in  the  pass  list,  to  the  general  who  has  lost  his 
battle,  every  kind  and  degree  of  us  has  tasted  this 
bitterness.  To  come  bump  up  against  your  limita- 
tions ;  to  see  your  rival  drawing  easily  ahead  of  you  ; 
to  break  down  when  the  prize  seemed  within  your 
grasp  ;  to  lose  your  money ;  to  lose  your  lover — how 
infinite  the  forms  of  failure,  and  how  heartbreaking  are 
they  all !  Failure,  we  say,  is  a  universal  experience. 
The  sense  of  it,  be  it  noted,  comes  not  less  to  the 
so-called  successful  than  to  those  they  have  surpassed. 
Is  there  any  greater  failure  than,  having  reached  your 
triumph,  to  find  its  inner  result  quite  different  from 
what  you  looked  for  ?  Is  there  a  crueller  experience 
than  such  a  one  (and  they  are  so  frequent)  as  Greville 
puts  down  in  his  Memoirs  ?  "In  the  course  of  three 
weeks  I  have  attained  the  three  things  which  I  have 
most  desired  in  the  world  for  years  past,  and  upon 
the  whole  I  do  not  feel  that  my  happiness  is  at  all 
increased."  That  "  vanitas  vanitatum"  which  the 
writer  of  Ecclesiastes  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the  great 
King,  when  his  gardens,  his  palaces,  his  knowledge, 
his  riches  have  this  "  vanity  of  vanities  "  for  summary, 
is  surely  despair's  last  word  !     We  have  all  to  reckon 

264 


Failure  and  the    Ideal 

with  failure.     It  is  life's  sternest  lesson,  and  we  owe 
it  to  ourselves  to  try  and  understand  it. 

For  so  universal  an  experience  must  have  some 
meaning  of  its  own.  And  in  a  universe  which  in  a 
thousand  other  ways  has  shown  such  goodwill  towards 
us,  we  may  well  beUeve  that  the  meaning  is  beneficent. 
That  belief  is  borne  out  as  soon  as  we  look  deeply  into 
the  matter.  A  number  of  things  begin  to  emerge. 
One  of  them,  we  perceive,  is  the  relation  of  failure  to 
Nature's  way  with  us.  That  way  is  a  large  and 
leisurely  one.  It  includes  a  thousand  things  which 
are  to  be  accompHshed,  but  each  in  its  own  way,  in  its 
own  time.  As  we  may  see  later,  the  highest  ideals  are 
to  be  reahsed,  but  never  in  a  hurry.  Humanity,  both 
as  a  whole  and  in  the  individual,  is  conceived  as  long- 
lived,  an  entity  that  can  afford  to  wait.  And  so 
failure,  as  we  know  it,  is  not  an  ultimate,  but  always 
part  of  a  process.  Respice  finem;  wait  for  the  end 
before  you  pronounce  on  it.  And  to  most  of  us,  after 
we  have  passed  a  reasonable  time  on  this  planet,  there 
has  come  the  feeling  that  we  are  somehow  part  of  a 
plan  that  is  larger  than  our  own.  The  circle  of  your 
voHtions  is  enclosed  in  a  wider.  It  is  with  you,  as  with 
your  horse,  which,  as  it  trots  in  harness  in  front  of  you, 
has,  doubtless,  views  on  its  own  life  and  on  horsehood 
in  general.  You  coincide  with  them  to  a  certain 
extent,  to  the  extent  of  feeding,  watering,  housing  and 
comfort  in  general.  But  your  views  go  beyond  his. 
We  also  are  in  harness.  We  planned  our  life,  but  it  is 
not  our  plan  that  is  being  carried  out.  We  begin 
dimly  to  perceive  that  in  missing  the  things  we  aimed 
at  we  did  not  miss  entirely  ;  our  miss  was,  in  fact, 

26s 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

someone  else's  hit.  Our  failures  here  and  there  were 
parts  in  a  scheme  that  is  succeeding  ;  and  it  is  a  better 
scheme  than  our  own. 

?  Nature,  indeed,  insists  that  we  should  be  chary  in  our 
use  of  this  word  failure.  It  is  a  purely  relative  term. 
It  belongs  to  the  near-sighted  view.  It  is  a  question 
of  aspect.  The  X-ray  is  in  one  sense  a  failure.  It  is  a 
ray  that  has  been  turned  out  of  its  direct  path  by 
meeting  with  an  obstacle.  The  splendid  energy  of 
radium  is  in  one  view  a  failure.  It  is  a  failure  of  the 
atom  to  maintain  its  stabiUty.  It  is  a  leakage  of  its 
force.  Human  life  is  full  of  this.  Is  that  man's 
career  a  failure  ?  Is  it  a  success  ?  It  is  all  as  you 
view  it.  A  lawyer  reaches  the  woolsack,  the  top  seat 
of  lawyerhood.  And  this  is  how  the  achievement,  in 
some  of  its  instances  at  least,  is  viewed  by  a  Carlyle  : 
**  A  poor,  weather-worn,  tanned,  curried,  wind-dried 
human  creature,  called  a  Chancellor,  all,  or  almost  all, 
gone  to  horsehair  and  officiality."  You  succeed  as  a 
courtier,  but  suppose  a  Montesquieu  comes  and  defines 
the  courtier  career  for  you  !  As  thus  :  "  Ambition  in 
idleness,  baseness  with  pride,  the  desire  of  enriching 
oneself  without  work,  the  aversion  to  truth  ;  flattery, 
treason,  perfidy,  contempt  for  the  duties  of  the  citizen, 
fear  of  a  prince's  virtues,  hopes  founded  on  his  vices, 
and  more  than  all  a  perpetual  ridicule  thrown  upon 
virtue,  form,  I  believe,  the  character  of  the  majority  of 
courtiers,  in  all  countries  and  in  all  times  !  " 

We  need  to  beware  of  what  we  call  success.  The  men 
who  live  in  the  region  of  easy  successes  never  come  to 
much.  They  match  themselves  against  small  things. 
It  is  in  encountering  the  great  things,  where  failures  are 

266 


Failure  and  the    Ideal 

so  plentiful,  that  we  come  to  our  best.  You  aimed  at 
the  moon  and  hit  a  tree.  Well,  the  endeavour  was 
worth  while,  and  perhaps  you  hit  something  besides 
the  tree.  It  is  often  the  invisible  hits  that  count.  The 
outside  mark  is  untouched,  but  if  you  have  made  bull's- 
eyes  in  the  region  of  fortitude,  of  patience,  of  industry, 
of  self-mastery,  the  scoring  has  not  been  bad.  When 
Madame  de  Chant al  declares  "  there  is  something  in 
me  that  has  never  been  satisfied,"  she  is  striking  a  note 
of  failure  that  really  means  success.  It  means  that 
we  are  made  for  such  high  things  that  the  lower, 
however  large  they  bulk,  do  not  enter  in  the  calculation. 
All  the  great  successes  have  begun  as  failures.  "  The 
folly  of  the  Cross,"  says  Professor  William  James,  "  so 
inexplicable  by  the  intellect,  has  yet  its  indestructible, 
vital  meaning.  NaturaHstic  optimism  is  mere  syllabub 
and  sponge  cake  in  comparison."  The  career  of  Jesus 
is  indeed  the  highest  teaching  on  this  subject  of  failure. 
He  was  its  most  conspicuous  example.  By  all  the 
standards  of  judgment  in  His  time  He  had  failed. 
And  He  meant  it  ;  meant  it  to  its  bottommost  dregs. 
In  order  to  Hve  His  greatest  He  must  die.  And  as  with 
the  leader  so  with  the  followers.  Paul,  his  greatest 
exponent,  followed  the  Master's  road.  We  who  read  his 
epistles  as  the  pith  of  the  New  Testament  are  apt  to 
think  of  him  as  always  paramount  in  the  Church.  It 
was  not  so.  Rejected  by  the  Jerusalem  orthodoxy  as 
heretical,  dogged  everywhere  by  the  Judaisers,  deserted 
in  his  last  hours  in  Rome  by  the  officials  of  the  Church, 
his  death  was  followed  by  an  apparently  almost  com- 
plete obhteration  of  his  influence  in  the  Churches  he 
had  planted  and  had  most  dearly  loved.     In  Ephesus, 

267 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

in  that  Asia  Minor  region  where  he  had  toiled  and 
suffered  most,  the  Pauline  tradition  was  swamped  by 
another.  He,  too,  next  to  his  Lord,  the  mightiest 
force  in  to-day's  Christian  thinking  and  being,  must  fail 
in  order  to  succeed. 

It  is  worth  while  to  study  the  after  Christian  history, 
and  to  study  it  closely,  if  only  to  observe  the  working 
throughout  it  of  this  law  of  failure  and  success. 
Everywhere  we  discern  movements  that  break  down, 
die  out,  as  it  seems,  and  yet  succeed  ;  succeed,  but  in 
a  quite  different  way  from  what  their  promoters 
intended ;  bearing  fruit  they  would  hardly  recognise, 
yet  the  real  and  abiding  fruit  of  their  endeavours.  Take 
Montanism,  the  Phrygian  movement  of  the  second 
century.  Full  of  the  crudenesses  and  wild  enthusiasms 
of  that  always  excitable  people,  the  movement,  after 
sweeping  parts  of  Asia  Minor  and  North  Africa,  where 
it  gains  so  great  a  man  as  Tertullian,  finally  fails 
against  the  discipline  of  the  historic  Church.  Its 
books  are  burned,  its  prophets  thrown  to  the  beasts,  its 
existence  as  an  organism  ceases.  Yet,  dead  as  it 
seems,  it  wins.  Its  testimony  to  the  continuous 
development  of  revelation,  to  the  rights  of  women  as 
teachers  in  the  Church,  to  the  necessity  of  spiritual 
power  as  against  mere  mechanical  officialism  as  a 
qualification  for  ministry — all  this  has  survived,  and 
is  a  factor  to-day  in  the  Church  and  in  the  higher  Hfe 
of  man.  Its  tradition  works  mightily  all  through  the 
Middle  Ages  ;  it  is  reborn  in  the  Albigenses,  in  the 
Waldensians,  in  the  fourteenth-century  "  Friends  of 
God  "  ;  in  community  after  community  of  daring, 
pious  souls  who  insist  upon  a  free,  primitive,  democratic 

268 


Failure  and  the    Ideal 

Gospel,  and  suffer  all  extremities  of  ecclesiastic  tyranny 
in  proclaiming  their  faith. 

In   this    history  so  mixed    are  success  and  failure 
that  one  has  difficulty   in    disentangling   them,   and 
in  saying  which  is  which.     There  are  successes  that 
become  failures,    and   yet   are  successes.      Take,  for 
instance,  St.  Francis  and  the  Franciscans.    Of  Francis 
himself    Renan    said    that    he    was    the    man    who 
made    him    realise    the    possibiUty   of   Jesus   as   an 
historical    person.      There   is    a    consensus   amongst 
students  of  his  life  that  no  other  has  so  faithfully  and 
so  beautifully  reproduced   the   spirit  of    the   Master. 
And  his  success  ?     Well,  he  is  known  as  the  founder 
of  a  great  order,   an  order  which  rose  to  enormous 
power  and  which  still  Hves.     But  "  there's  the  rub." 
It  was  the  Order  which  sprang  from  him  that  betrayed 
him.     It  was  his  own  spiritual  children  who  reversed 
his  ideals  and  made  the  institution  stand  for  something 
quite  different  from  the  thought  of  his  heart.     In  his 
lifetime  even,  a  cardinal  gets  hold  of  the  movement 
and  manipulates  it  to  his  own  ends.     As  soon  as  the 
breath  is  out  of  his  body  his  successor,  Frater  Elias, 
begins  that  work  of  change  in  the  institution  from  the 
old  watchwords  of  poverty,  renunciation  and  service, 
to  aims  which  end  in  vast  enrichments,  in  crafty  self- 
seekings,  and  finally  in  shocking  immoralities.    What 
the  later  Franciscans  had  come  to  we  may  read  in 
Chaucer,  in  Langland,  in  Erasmus.     Failure  here,  it 
seems,  sad  and  complete.     Yet  in  the  midst  of  it,  in 
spite  of  it  all,  we  see  the  success.    It  is  there,  not  only 
in  the  devoted  lives  of  those  ^*  spiritual  Franciscans," 
as  they  were  called,  who  protested  against  the  cor- 

269 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

ruption  of  their  order,  and  sought  to  follow  their  leader 
as  he  followed  Christ.  Far  more,  in  the  fragrance 
which  through  all  the  ages  since  has  exhaled  from  that 
wonderful  life,  filling  the  world  with  sweet  odours  as  it 
were  of  heavenly  incense ;  in  the  lesson  the  Hf e  shows 
us  of  how  a  soul  in  one  of  the  fiercest  and  most  ruthless 
of  ages,  depriving  itself  of  all  luxuries,  all  external  aids, 
could  exhibit  to  men  the  loveliness  of  highest  life,  the 
sheer  delight  the  pure  heart  knows  in  God,  and  in  God's 
world ;  in  Nature,  in  one's  brother  man.  No  accidents, 
no  misinterpretations,  can  ever  permanently  dim  the 
success  of  a  beautiful  soul. 

You  are  never  entitled  to  say  that  the  thing  you  are 
upon,  if  you  are  putting  your  best  into  it,  is  a  failure. 
There  is  no  failure  in  good  work.  It  may  not  be  pro- 
ducing the  result  you  expected.  But  it  is  producing 
its  own  result,  which  may  be  far  better.  Many  a 
seemingly  lost  battle  is  won  at  the  end.  At  Marengo, 
Napoleon,  then  at  the  outset  of  his  career,  seemed 
hopelessly  beaten.  But  fortune  loves  daring  spirits, 
and  at  the  last  moment  the  arrival  of  Dessaix,  and 
Kellerman's  cavalry  charge,  turned  defeat  into  victory. 
Your  Marengo  may  not  be  on  so  great  a  scale,  but  it  is 
your  business  never  to  believe  it  is  a  lost  battle  so  long 
as  you  are  there,  to  put  your  courage  and  faculty 
into  it. 

Have  you  discovered  Nature's  method  here  ?  That 
all  her  developments  begin  in  failures  ?  Observe  how 
the  child  grows  into  the  man.  The  process  is  a  succes- 
sion of  decays  and  deaths.  The  boy  stage  is  reached 
by  the  fading  and  disappearance  of  childhood's  special 
beauty.     You  lose  your  babe  by  its  sheer  hving  as 

270 


Failure  and   the   Ideal 

truly  as  if  it  had  died.  The  youth  in  turn  supplants 
the  boy,  and  the  man  the  youth.  And  so  on  to  that 
deeper  evolution  in  which  the  spiritual  destroys  the 
fleshly  mind  ;  the  lower  fails  that  the  higher  may  have 
its  chance. 

The  more  we  study  this  theme  the  more  hopeful  it 
grows.  Failure  is  not  the  final  word  in  this  universe. 
So  stern  a  realist  as  Marcus  AureUus  can  see  this. 
He  holds  to  Nature's  boundless  recreative  faculty. 
"  Herein,"  says  he,  "  is  the  marvel  of  her  handiwork, 
that  she  transmutes  unto  herself  every  content  that 
seems  corrupt  and  old  and  useless,  and  from  the  same 
materials  recreates  afresh."  True,  and  there  is  more 
that  is  true.  Life  is  stronger  than  death,  good  than 
evil,  heaven  than  hell.  Let  us  believe  in  the  victory  of 
all  that  is  greatest,  noblest,  highest.  Let  us  believe  in 
our  own  victory.  The  stiffest  problem  for  each  life 
is  that  of  its  own  seeming  decay.  What  tries  us  to  the 
utmost  is  the  vanishing  of  powers  we  once  had;  the 
oncoming  instead  of  infirmities,  the  heightening  and 
thickening  of  the  walls  of  limitation.  The  sky 
darkens,  "  the  night  cometh."  But  across  all  this  the 
New  Testament  sounds  its  high,  triumphant  note.  Its 
message  is  the  ultimate  of  evolution.  The  break  up  of 
our  mortal  frame  is  to  be  the  putting  on  of  immortality. 
Death  is  to  be  swallowed  up  in  victory.  It  is  the  final 
failure  of  failure.  The  universe  is  a  success,  for  God  is 
All  in  All. 


271 


XXIX 

THE    ETHICS    OF    TRADE 

There  seems  to  have  been  a  widespread  and  long- 
established  doubt  as  to  whether  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
an  ethic  of  trade.  It  is  singular  to  note  the  general 
contempt  with  which  the  early  world  looked  down  upon 
it.  Plato,  in  the  "  Laws,"  takes  it  for  granted  that  the 
retail  trader  will  be  a  rogue.  In  speaking  of  the 
remedies  for  the  corruption  of  the  city,  he  says,  "in  the 
first  place  they  must  have  as  few  retail  traders  as 
possible  ;  and  in  the  next  place,  they  must  assign  the 
occupation  to  that  class  of  men  whose  corruption  will 
be  the  least  injury  to  the  State.''  And  further,  "he 
who  in  any  way  shares  in  the  illiberality  of  retail  trades 
may  be  indicted  by  any  one  who  likes  for  dishonour- 
ing his  race."  Aristotle  speaks  to  the  same  effect. 
He  looks  on  trade,  and  all  the  property  that  comes 
of  it,  as  belonging  to  the  sphere  of  the  ignoble  and 
illiberal.  It  was  beneath  the  Greek  "  gentleman  "  who 
lived  by  war  and  the  toil  of  slaves.  And  the  Roman 
was  with  the  Greek  in  this  feeling.  Cicero,  in  the  De 
Officiis,  states  it  as  a  commonplace  that  "  we  are 
Ukewise  to  despise  all  who  retail  merchants'  goods 
.  .  .  for  they  never  can  succeed  unless  they  lie 
most  abominably."  In  modern  Japan  the  trader  has 
fallen  a  good  deal  under  suspicion  both  at  home  and 

272 


The  Ethics   of  Trade 

abroad,  and  the  reason  assigned  is  that  the  class  from 
which  hitherto  he  has  been  drawn  is  an  inferior  one, 
not  possessed  by  the  notions  of  honour  which  prevail 
amongst  the  upper,  military  class.  And  to-day 
amongst  us  of  the  West  it  cannot  be  said  that  trade  has 
too  much  of  an  ethic.  To  the  general  view  it  offers 
rather  the  appearance  of  a  scramble  in  which  the  devil 
is  to  take  the  hindmost. 

And  yet  it  becomes  increasingly  certain  that  trade 
cannot  do  without  an  ethic,  and  a  clearly-defined  one. 
And  that,  for  one  thing,  because  commerce  has  become 
the  world's  Hfe,  a  foremost  interest.  We  have  quite 
emerged  from  the  old-world  thought  about  it.  There 
is,  it  is  true,  a  large  adoption  of 

The  good  old  rule,  the  simple  plan, 

That  he  may  take  who  has  the  power. 
And  he  may  keep  who  can. 

But  we  "  take/'  at  least,  in  a  gentler  fashion.  We  do 
not  regard  exchange  as  inferior  in  nobility  to  bloodshed. 
The  modern  aristocracies  are  full  of  finance.  National 
pre-eminence  is  reckoned  on  the  scale  of  trade  returns. 
The  new  universities  are  built  as  the  allies  of  industry. 
The  arts  and  sciences  have  their  largest  outlook  on 
commerce.  The  country  gentleman,  the  scholar,  the 
cleric,  as  well  as  the  City  man,  have  their  investments 
in  the  great  world  market ;  they  look  for  their  dividends 
from  coal  and  iron,  from  the  traffic  of  ships  and  rail- 
ways. Plainly,  if  life  is  to  be  ethical,  trade  must  be,  for 
it  covers  life. 

There  is,  in  truth,  no  escape  from  ethics.  Life  in  its 
trade  aspect,  as  in  every  other,  rests  ultimately  on  the 

273  s 


Life  and  the   Ideal 

spiritual.  It  breaks  in  on  your  sales  and  your  balance- 
sheets  with  its  inevitable  questions.  Even  here  a  man 
is  haunted  by  his  ideals.  When  one  side  of  him  asks, 
**  What  are  you  making  out  of  cloth  ?  "  Another  side 
rejoins  with  **  What  are  you  making  of  yourself  ?  " 
"  How  f ar  ?  "  continues  the  other  side,  **  is  your  trade 
contributing  to  your  manhood,  to  your  reaching  the 
best  side  of  existence  ?  "  In  commerce  even,  the  real 
powers  are  principles.  Let  a  man  neglect  them,  and 
they  show  at  once  their  tremendous  energy  of  retalia- 
tion. When  Demosthenes,  in  one  of  his  orations, 
tells  the  Athenians  that,  as  a  building  is  only  secure 
when  it  is  on  true  foundations,  so  enterprises  are  safe 
only  when  they  have  justice  and  truth  beneath  them,  he 
was  saying  what  all  experience  confirms.  Man  is  slow 
to  believe  it,  but  it  is  being  battered  into  him  by  the 
blows  of  solid  fact.  Again  and  again  he  defies  it,  and 
we  see  the  consequences.  He  has,  for  instance,  tried 
to  enrich  himself  by  slave  labour.  He  tried  it  in  Rome, 
and  it  ruined  Rome.  He  tried  it  in  the  Southern 
States  and  brought  on  himself  impoverishment,  war, 
and  the  modern  chaos  of  black  and  white.  The  devil's 
trade-system,  wherever  it  is  started,  spells  bankruptcy 
in  the  end. 

There  are  illustrations  nearer  home.  An  employer 
proposes  to  make  money  by  cheating.  He  enjoins  on 
his  assistants  to  tell  lies  about  his  goods.  With  their 
help  he  sells  counterfeits  for  the  real  article.  It  is  a 
cool  defiance  of  the  moral  order,  and  the  moral  order 
will  have  its  revenge.  Observe  how  the  thing  works. 
In  the  first  place  the  man  is  debauching  the  character 
of  his  employees.     Has  he  not  sense  enough  to  see 

274 


The  Ethics   of  Trade 

that,  apart  from  the  gross  injury  he  is  here  inflicting 
upon  others,  he  is  robbing  himself  ?  He  is  robbing 
himself  of  the  service  of  good  character.  He  is  sur- 
rounding himself  with  knaves.  These  people,  whom 
he  has  taught  to  lie  to  customers,  will  they  not  lie  to 
him  ?  His  estabHshment  has  become  a  low-class 
community,  a  fact  which  the  public  will  soon  enough 
find  out.  He  can  fool  his  world  for  a  time,  but  he  will 
not  fool  it  always.  His  roguery,  matched  against  the 
cosmic  principles,  comes  off  badly  in  the  end. 

We  have  in  England  to-day  a  controversy  on  trade 
ethics  on  the  widest  scale.  It  is  the  question  of 
Protection  versus  Free  Trade.  Without  touching 
the  technique  of  this  subject,  let  us  ask  whether  the 
world-ethic,  the  ultimate  principles  of  things,  have 
anything  to  say  about  it.  The  master  idea  of  Pro- 
tection is  exclusion.  It  proposes  to  build  walls  roimd 
a  nation  to  shut  out  the  outside  world  from  a  share  in 
its  trade  life.  Well,  a  principle,  a  theory,  should  have 
some  tests  of  its  worth,  and  one,  surely,  of  the  fost 
is  the  universality  of  its  application.  It  should  cover 
the  whole  field  of  operation.  If  gravitation  were  to 
fail  as  a  theory  of  motion  when  applied  to  an  apple, 
it  would  have  no  weight  as  applied  to  a  sun.  If  the 
exclusion  poHcy  of  the  Protectionist  is  a  good  one,  it 
should  cover  with  equal  beneficence  the  entire  field 
of  exchange.  Ought  it  not  to  apply  to  the  nation's 
invisible  goods  as  well  as  to  its  visible  ones  ?  We  are, 
for  the  national  benefit,  to  keep  out  Germany's  clocks 
and  gloves  ;  why  not  keep  out  Germany's  ideas  ? 
Have  we  not  a  home-made  religion,  a  home-made 
scholarship,  a  home-made  music  ?     Why  not  protect 

275 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

them  ?  Why  not  preserve  the  national  genius  from 
foreign  intrusion  ?  How  perverse  of  our  forefathers 
that  they  did  not  think  of  this  ;  that  they  allowed 
admission  to  the  religion  of  Luther,  to  the  music  of 
Beethoven,  to  the  philosophy  of  Kant  !  Is  it  too  late 
to  stop  this  sinister  free  trade  in  ideas  ?  Are  people 
to  be  allowed  to  nurse  the  delusion  that  this  con- 
tradiction of  all  sound  Protectionist  doctrine  has  pro- 
duced a  positive  enrichment  of  the  nation's  inner 
life? 

This  may  perhaps  be  called  an  evasion  of  the  real 
issue.  *'  We  are  not  talking  about  ideas.  They  are  in 
a  different  category  altogether.  The  question  is  one 
of  solid  goods,  of  the  stuff  that  is  handled  at  custom- 
houses." Suppose,  then,  for  argument's  sake,  we 
accept  this  Hmitation,  and  keep  to  solid  goods.  If, 
in  their  case,  the  exclusion  principle  is  good,  it  should 
be  good  anywhere  and  to  all  lengths.  If  it  is  good 
for  England  to  protect  herself  against  French  or 
American  imports,  why  not  against  Scottish  imports  ? 
Why  should  not  cities  have  their  tariff  walls,  as  in 
the  old  time,  and  Bristol  impose  its  duties  on  Bir- 
mingham ?  How  odd  that  the  United  States,  which 
raises  its  barriers  against  us,  should  not  carry  so  good 
a  principle  inwards,  Ohio  protecting  itself  against 
Indiana,  New  York  against  Jersey  ?  Why,  indeed  ! 
While  the  principle  of  free  exchanges  proclaims  itself 
fearlessly  as  universal — applicable  to  ideas,  to  goods, 
to  places  the  world  over — how  comes  it  that  this 
opposite  system  requires  only  to  be  pushed  far  enough 
to  reveal  itself  as  offering  a  reductio  ad  ahsurdum? 

Trading,  in  itself,  is  an  essentially  friendly  business. 

276 


The   Ethics   of  Trade 

A  normal  transaction  in  it  leaves  everybody  pleased. 
It  is  a  benefit  to  the  seller  and  equally  to  the  buyer  ; 
each  has  obtained  what  he  wanted.  And  the  com- 
munity has  profited  ;  it  thrives  on  the  volume  of 
business  done.  And  there  is  no  greater  promoter  of 
friendliness  amongst  peoples  than  the  broadening 
of  their  trade  relations.  The  nations  learn  in  this  way 
how  necessary  they  are  to  each  other  ;  how  the 
prosperity  of  one  helps  the  prosperity  of  all.  To-day, 
amid  our  threatening  armaments,  the  greatest  pre- 
server of  peace  is  the  consciousness  that  the  out- 
break of  war  would  mean  commercial  ruin.  But 
Protection  is  the  reverse  of  all  this.  It  is  essentially 
a  war  principle.  Instead  of  proposing  to  help  all 
round,  it  is  an  attempt  to  hurt  somebody.  To  slam 
the  door  in  your  neighbour's  face  can  by  no  juggling 
be  made  to  appear  a  friendly  act.  The  very  vocabulary 
of  Protection  is  hostile.  It  talks  of  "  the  foreigner," 
and  always  as  if  he  were  an  enemy.  Its  promoters 
call  for  Dreadnoughts,  for  conscription,  for  a  nation 
in  arms.  And  they  are  logical  in  this,  for  their  system 
is  in  its  nature  a  menace  to  peace,  a  barrier  to  brother- 
hood. 

These,  we  say,  are  ethical  considerations,  and,  we 
repeat,  you  cannot  separate  ethics  from  business. 
It  was  the  sense  of  this  which  led  Emerson  to  cry, 
*'  If  I  could  have  it — free  trade  with  all  the  world, 
without  toll  or  custom  house."  The  damning  feature 
of  Protection  is  that  there  is  no  discernible  ethic 
behind  it.  Says  Henry  George,  speaking  of  the  tariff 
history  of  the  United  States  :  "  The  fastening  of  a 
protective  tariff  on  the  United  States  has  been  due  to 

277 


Life  and   the    Ideal 

these  influences,  and  not  to  the  acceptance  of  absurd 
theories  of  Protection  upon  their  own  merits."  The 
influence  he  here  speaks  of  are  those  of  the  lobbyists, 
who  insist  that  the  taxes  by  which  they  profit  shall  not 
be  reduced.  The  stupidity  on  which  Protection 
trades,  and  the  consequences  to  which  it  leads,  are 
summed  up  by  Gustave  le  Bon,  one  of  the  ablest 
scientists  of  modern  France,  in  a  sentence :  **  To 
recognise  that  Protection  ruins  the  people  who 
accept  it  requires  at  least  twenty  years  of  disastrous 
experiences." 

With  such  evidence  as  this  against  it  one  may  well 
ask  how  it  is  that  Protection  has  gained  its  present 
position  in  the  world  ?  The  history  of  it  shows  us 
only  too  clearly.  It  is  the  conspiracy  of  riches  without 
conscience  against  the  helplessness  of  the  poor.  The 
procedure  is  singular,  almost  farcical,  were  it  not  so 
tragic.  A  Gospel  was  preached  in  Palestine  two 
thousand  years  ago,  a  Gospel  to  poor  men  by  a  poor 
Man.  The  Preacher  spoke  wholly  in  the  interests 
of  His  hearers,  Himself  ever  a  poor  man,  having  not 
where  to  lay  His  head.  To-day  the  poor  have  also  a 
Gospel  preached  to  them.  But  the  conditions  are 
changed.  Now  it  is  the  plutocrats  who  exhort  the 
poor  ;  and  not  for  the  poor's  sake,  but  for  their  own. 
For  this  propaganda  they  have  purchased  speakers 
and  writers.  They  use  the  Press.  They  buy  leader- 
writers  ;  they  hire  professional  statisticians  who  dress 
up  columns  of  figures,  with  their  tongue  in  their  cheek. 
In  no  department  has  the  art  of  lying,  of  the  suppressio 
veri  and  the  siiggestio  falsi,  been  carried  to  greater 
perfection  than  in  the  relation  and  manipulation  of 

278 


The  Ethics  of  Trade 

figures.  Wonderful  Gospel !  with  millionaires  for  its 
proclaimers,  and  for  object  the  ruthless  exploiting  of 
the  helpless,  witless  crowd  !  Carlyle  makes  a  debtor 
and  creditor  account  of  this  sort  of  procedure  : 
"  Debtor  to  so  much  lying ;  forfeiture  of  the  existing 
stock  of  worth  to  such  an  extent ;  approach  to 
general  damnation  by  so  much." 

We  have  dealt  with  this  aspect  of  trade  ethics  at  such 
length  because  for  one  thing  it  is  an  immediate  question 
of  the  day  ;  and  for  another  because  it  illustrates  in 
concrete  fashion  and  on  the  largest  scale  the  interplay 
of  eternal  principles  with  our  human  activities.  And 
we  may  safely  predict,  even  against  present  appear- 
ances, that  the  eternal  principles  will  conquer.  We 
see  clearly  what  is  the  trend  of  these  principles  ;  whose 
side  they  are  on.  They  are  all  for  union  and  against 
disunion  ;  for  freedom  of  movement  as  against  cramps 
and  barriers  ;  for  mutual  trust  as  against  deceptions 
and  suspicions ;  for  human  solidarity  as  against 
national  jealousies  and  enmities.  The  ethics  of  trade 
are  part  of  the  cosmic  ethic,  an  ethic  whose  law  book 
is  the  New  Testament,  whose  chief  maxim  is  to  love 
one  another  ;  and  whose  end  is  the  advancement  of 
humanity  towards  its  predestined  perfection. 


279 


XXX 

MOODS  AND  THE  IDEAL 

There  is  a  passage  in  Diderot  where  he  speaks  of  a 
marvellous  performance  by  Garrick  :  "  He  saw  Garrick 
pass  his  head  between  two  folding  doors,  and  in  the 
space  of  a  few  seconds  his  face  went  successively  from 
mad  joy  to  moderate  joy,  from  this  to  tranquillity, 
from  tranquillity  to  surprise,  from  surprise  to  astonish- 
ment, from  astonishment  to  gloom,  from  gloom  to  utter 
dejection,  from  dejection  to  fear,  from  fear  to  horror, 
from  horror  to  despair  ;  and  then  reascend  from  this 
lowest  degree  to  the  point  whence  he  had  started." 
An  exhibition  of  that  kind  suggests  something  more 
than  the  possibilities  of  facial  expression  in  a  great 
actor.  It  makes  one  think  of  the  enormous  range  of 
variation  in  the  states  of  the  soul.  Our  ideal  of 
character  may  be  that  of  an  indomitable  steadfastness, 
of  an  unfailing  good  cheer.  But  human  nature  as  we 
find  it  is  not  on  that  level.  What  we  are  most  often 
struck  with  in  our  fellows  is  their  mutability.  And 
this  not  simply  as  the  calculable  reaction  of  the  soul 
under  certain  circumstances.  We  expect  that  a  man 
will  rejoice  when  he  hears  good  news,  that  he  will  laugh 
at  a  jest ;  that  he  will  sorrow  in  bereavement,  that  he 
will  be  horror-struck  under  a  tragedy.  Here  the 
instrument  gives  out  the  note  that  is  looked  for  from  it. 

280 


Moods  and   the    Ideal 

But  what  we  are  now  concerned  with  is  something 
deeper,  and  less  easy  to  be  reckoned  with. 

A  man's  mood  is  the  incalculable  part  of  him.  It  is 
his  mental  weather,  and,  like  the  weather,  the  cause  of 
change  is  hid  in  mystery.  The  mood  suffuses  and 
colours  his  thinking,  but  is  itself  often  beyond  his 
thinking.  Under  its  power  the  man,  while  in  the 
same  outward  circumstances,  is  one  thing  to-day  and 
another  to-morrow.  Now  you  have  him  bathed  in 
sunshine,  anon  wrapped  in  deepest  gloom.  And  this 
variableness,  let  us  note,  is  by  no  means  confined  to 
the  less  developed,  the  less  cultured  of  minds.  You 
will  find,  perhaps,  the  most  striking  examples  in 
people  of  unusual  gifts.  Look  into  the  biographies  of 
poets,  of  artists,  of  leaders  of  literature,  and  even  of 
religion.  A  Wordsworth  may,  year  in  and  year  out, 
preserve  his  calm  serenity,  but  what  of  Byron,  of 
Keats,  of  Shelley,  of  Cowper  ?  Gray  has  depicted  for 
us  in  moving  language  his  devouring  melancholy. 
Lamb  is  half  a  dozen  different  creatures  in  twenty-four 
hours.  You  might  find  heaven  or  hell  in  Carlyle, 
according  to  the  mood  you  hit  upon. 

But  we  need  not  enumerate.  The  thing  is  so  patent 
to  us  all.  We  know  our  own  moods.  The  mood  is, 
we  say,  irrational,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  outside 
of  reason.  It  may  govern  your  logic,  but  it  is  not 
logic  that  produces  it.  It  is  a  state  of  the  inner 
atmosphere,  rising  out  of  the  subconscious  realm, 
as  clouds  come  up  from  beneath  the  horizon.  The 
mood,  Hke  the  weather,  belongs  to  the  as  yet  un- 
reclaimed, unconquered  part  of  us.  We  have  not  yet 
obtained  control  of  the  Vvinds  and  the  clouds,  but  who 

281 


Life  and   the   Ideal 

knows  that  we  shall  not  do  so  ?  And  in  the  end  the 
inner  conquest  may  be  not  less  complete. 

Meanwhile  the  mood,  as  we  now  know  it,  has  played 
so  important  a  part  in  history,  and  plays  so  great  a  part 
in  our  own  lives,  that  we  may  well  give  it  some  atten- 
tion. It  is  a  humiliating  consideration,  but  one  which 
no  observer  can  afford  to  overlook,  that  human  history 
hitherto,  both  of  the  Church  and  of  the  State,  has  been 
largely  that  of  moods  and  their  outcome.  It  has  been 
one  of  temper  rather  than  of  intellect.  It  has  been  so 
in  politics  and  not  less  so  in  theology.  Controversies 
have  raged,  battles  been  fought,  kingdoms  destroyed, 
sects  created,  and  the  cause  has  been  not  in  reason  but 
in  passion.  After  the  decision,  and  when  the  movement 
is  in  full  swing,  it  has  always  been  easy  to  find  argu- 
ments. Only  it  was  not  these  arguments  that  made 
the  decision. 

Pascal  says  the  history  of  the  world  would  have  been 
different  had  Cleopatra's  nose  been  shorter.  It  is  a 
touch  of  cynicism  on  which  one  could  ring  infinite 
variations.  How  different,  for  instance,  would  history 
have  been  had  some  statesman,  at  a  critical  moment, 
not  got  up  with  a  fit  of  bile  !  To  take  a  modern 
example  :  should  we  have  had  the  split  of  the  Liberal 
party  over  the  Home  Rule  question,  with  all  its 
momentous  consequences,  if  one  statesman,  at  a  crisis 
in  the  movement,  had  not  snapped  his  fingers  at 
another  ?  It  is  said  that  Catherine  of  Russia  joined 
the  coalition  against  Frederick  the  Great  in  the  Seven 
Years'  War  because  of  a  cutting  sarcasm  upon  her 
by  the  Prussian  monarch,  which  travelled  from  Sans 
Souci  to  St.  Petersburg. 

282 


Moods  and    the    Ideal 

We  have  hardly  yet  properly  estimated  the  power  of 
the  mood  in  theological  and  religious  controversy. 
Theology  has  represented  so  often  not  the  state  of 
things  in  the  universe,  but  the  bilious  condition  of  some 
prominent  writer.  How  often  it  means  that  two  able 
men,  for  private  reasons,  have  learned  to  hate  one 
another,  and  therefore  feel  each  compelled  to  con- 
trovert whatever  the  other  says  !  Who  that  reads 
Luther's  "  De  Arhitrio  Servo  "  as  against  the  work  of 
Erasmus  on  Free  Will,  but  realises  how  far  sheer 
personal  hatred  enters  into  the  controversy  !  The 
present  writer  could  never  read  Athanasius  with 
pleasure  because  of  the  venom  he  shows.  Old  friends 
fall  out  and  straightway  the  doctrine  of  each  becomes 
damnable  to  the  other.  Read  what  Jerome  has  to  say 
of  the  teaching  of  Rufinus  in  his  later  period.  Allies 
once,  they  quarrelled,  and  their  quarrel  became 
theology.  At  the  end,  when  his  enemy  died,  Jerome 
called  his  funeral  "  the  burial  of  a  scorpion."  Have 
our  readers  ever  looked  into  the  "  Quinquarticular  " 
or  **  Five-Points  "  controversy  between  Wesley  and 
his  Calvinistic  contemporaries  ;  into  the  volumes  and 
pamphlets  of  Toplady  and  Hill  and  Fletcher  and 
others  ?  Free  Will  and  Predestination  are  the  blud- 
geons with  which  these  heated  adversaries  seek  to  beat 
out  each  other's  brains.  Lecky  truly  observes  of  one 
of  these  combatants  :  "  How  strange  it  is  that  anyone 
who  wrote  prose  in  such  a  truly  demoniacal  spirit  as 
Toplady  should  be  the  author  of  so  many  beautiful 
hymns!"  We  have  improved  somewhat  in  these 
matters  in  our  later  day,  but  we  are  as  yet  by  no  means 
rid  of  the  mood  in  theology.     We  probably  never  shall 

283 


Life  and  the  Ideal 

be,  but  then  there  are  some  moods  which  are  so  much 
better  than  others.  Is  it  not  time  we  expelled  arro- 
gance and  atrabiliousness  from  our  religious  teaching  ? 
There  are  theological  productions  still  issuing  from 
the  press  whose  interest  for  us  is  in  the  study  they 
offer  of  bad  mental  states.  This  acrid  and  gloomy 
dogmatism,  this  more  than  papal  infallibility,  this 
vehemence  of  denunciation  against  all  who  differ,  has 
little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  truth  about  man  and 
God.  It  is  pathological,  to  be  studied  as  a  physician 
studies  a  case  of  abnormal  mental  conditions. 

It  is  time  to  say,  however,  that  in  speaking  of  it  as 
outside  rationality,  and  as  sometimes  evil,  we  are  by 
no  means  condemning  the  mood  as  such.  We  might  as 
well  condemn  the  weather,  which  is  always  with  us. 
There  are  great  moods,  as  well  as  the  small  and  petty 
ones  ;  conditions  in  which  the  soul  is  ready  for  the 
highest,  in  which  it  breeds  its  noblest  thoughts,  does 
its  heroic  deeds.  Heine,  in  one  of  his  poems,  depicts 
a  youth,  by  nature  homely  and  awkward,  who  rises 
into  grace  and  dignity  at  the  approach  of  his  lady-love. 
He  is  representing  in  this  way  the  poet  visited  by  his 
muse.  And,  poet  or  no  poet,  we  all  get  our  divine 
moments,  when  the  gates  swing  back  and  we  have  our 
glimpse  into  the  City  of  God.  Alas,  that  these  high 
times  and  tides  of  the  spirit  visit  us  so  rarely  !  We 
want  more  vision  hours  ;  hours  such  as  that  of  which  an 
American  physician,  quoted  by  Professor  James, 
speaks  :  ''  I  saw  that  the  universe  is  not  composed  of 
dead  matter,  but  is,  on  the  contrary,  a  living  Presence  ; 
I  became  conscious  in  myself  of  eternal  Hfe  ;  I  saw  that 
men  are  immortal ;  that  the  cosmic  rule  is  such  that  all 

284 


Moods  and    the    Ideal 

things  work  together  for  the  good  of  all."  Or  that 
moment  of  which  Lowell  speaks  :  "  I  never  before  so 
clearly  felt  the  Spirit  of  God  in  me  and  around  me. 
The  whole  room  seemed  to  me  full  of  God.  The  air 
seemed  to  waver  to  and  fro  with  the  presence  of 
Something,  I  knew  not  what." 

There  are  moods  of  this  kind  which  not  only 
possess  an  individual,  but,  of  mightier  sweep,  lay 
hold  of  and  transfigure  a  people,  a  nation,  a  genera- 
tion. At  such  times  a  single  idea,  powerless  for 
other  ages  or  peoples,  flashes  through  a  community  like 
fire  among  stubble,  and  sets  everything  ablaze.  Men 
then  become  more  than  themselves.  The  impelling 
power  of  neighbour  souls  is  in  them,  doubling,  quad- 
rupUng  their  force.  The  period  of  the  Crusades  was 
such  an  epoch  ;  the  Renaissance  and  Reformation  time 
was  another.  So  was  the  French  Revolution,  the  time 
when  men  were  heroes  one  day  and  demons  the  next  ; 
when  young  girls  offered  themselves  as  soldiers,  desiring, 
as  one  of  them  said,  "  to  avenge  my  country,  combat 
the  tyrants,  and  share  the  glory  of  destroying  them." 
May  not  the  late  Welsh  revival  be  described  as  an 
exalted  national  mood  ;  a  wave  of  common  feeling  in 
which  the  spiritual  side  of  man  asserted  itself  with 
overwhelming  force,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else  that 
belonged  to  him  ? 

We  have  gone  hitherto  on  the  idea  of  the  mood  as 
being  something  beyond  reason,  yet  influencing  the 
reason.  This  theory,  however,  has  its  limits.  If  this 
were  all,  it  would  leave  us  in  a  kind  of  fatalism, 
with  our  thinking  and  our  deciding  at  the  mercy 
of   an  impalpable  something    outside.      But   that   is 

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not  the  case.  Admit  all  there  is  to  be  said  as  to  the 
mystery  and  power  of  the  mood.  Yet  it  is  not 
omnipotent.  If  it  can  work  upon  our  thought,  our 
thought  can  work  back  upon  it.  And  the  will 
also  has  its  say — if  we  choose,  an  effective  say.  The 
mood  is  movable,  often  so  easily  movable.  A  child's 
prattle  may  do  it,  or  a  strain  of  music.  Saul  knew 
that  when  in  his  hour  of  depression  he  called  in 
David  and  his  harp.  Man  finds  he  can  induce  moods 
by  creating  certain  conditions.  He  can  drug  himself 
into  given  mental  states.  Under  the  influence  of 
drink  some  become  in  succession  hilarious,  quarrel- 
some, sentimental,  maudlin,  and  finally  despairing. 
We  can  avoid  all  that,  if  we  choose,  by  simply  letting 
the  drink  alone.  On  the  other  hand,  who  of  us  has 
not  tasted  with  Rousseau  the  kind  of  mood  which 
follows  upon  a  country  walk  !  Says  he  :  "  Walking  has 
something  which  animates  and  stirs  my  ideas.  .  .  . 
I  need  a  bodily  motion  to  set  my  soul  in  motion. 
The  view  of  the  country,  the  succession  of  pleasant 
prospects,  the  open  air,  the  good  appetite,  gain  by 
walking.  .  .  .  All  this  frees  my  spirit,  gives 
audacity  to  my  thought,  throws  me,  as  it  were,  into 
the  immensity  of  things.  ...  I  act  as  master  of 
all  Nature."  That,  too,  is  the  true  journeying  mood, 
the  rapture  of  travel,  which  Goethe  depicts  for  us  in  his 
"Wilhelm   Meister  "  : 

In  each  land  the  sun  does  visit, 

We  are  gay  whate'er  betide. 
To  give  room  for  wandering  is  it 

That  the  world  was  made  so  wide  ? 

What  Rousseau  and  Goethe  here  enjoin  is  but  the 
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Moods   and    the    Ideal 

application  of  a  wider  principle,  that  for  healthy  moods 
we  need  health.  Health  is  naturally  joyful.  Pessimism 
is  a  product  of  disease.  It  is  another  name  for  a  dis- 
ordered liver.  We  do  not  know  the  author  of  Eccle- 
siastes,  but  we  can  make  affirmations  about  him.  He 
was  old  and  broken.  Every  line  of  the  book  has  in  it  the 
accent  of  weariness,  of  exhaustion,  of  bad  health.  So 
much  of  literature  is  gloomy  because  diseased  men  have 
written  it.  Were  they  responsible  for  that  ?  Partly. 
Some  of  us  have  here  a  bad  bit  of  heredity  to  struggle 
against,  but  when  we  remember  the  extent  to  which 
health  is  an  affair  of  common-sense  ;  the  extent  to 
which  it  is  in  our  own  hands  ;  how  simple  the  rules  for 
maintaining  it ;  how  perverse  the  follies  which  dissipate 
and  destroy  it,  we  shall  indeed  be  culpable  if  by  our 
negligence,  or  our  indulgence,  or  our  fiat  disobedience 
to  plain  Nature-laws,  we  allow  the  priceless  inheritance 
to   slip  from   us. 

Our  moods,  we  have  said,  are  the  least  explored  and 
the  least  subjugated  of  the  soul's  wide  territories.  The 
most  gifted  men  are  often  the  most  subject  to  them. 
That,  we  suppose,  because  they  are  the  most  sensitive. 
But  is  this  subjection  a  necessity  ?  That  were  indeed 
a  counsel  of  despair.  That  were  to  confess  ourselves 
slaves  and  not  conquerors.  Our  inner  self  is  indeed  a 
mysterious  entity,  a  realm  where  winds  blow  and 
clouds  arise  often  we  know  not  whence.  But  this 
vast  vicissitude  is  not  a  chaos.  It  is  an  ordered 
scheme.  The  variety  here  is  as  of  a  great  organ  with 
manifold  stops.  The  harmonies  and  dissonances  are 
alike  part  of  the  music.  It  is  part  of  our  training  that 
we  are  bid  to  drink  of  all  that  life  has  to  offer.     Nature 

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Life  and   the   Ideal 

sends  her  moods  that  we  may  accomplish  one  after  the 
other  the  diverse  things  which  complete  our  work  in 
the  world.  And  in  sending  them  she  gives  to  her 
initiates  the  key  to  their  mastery.  For  there  is  a 
secret  of  mastery.  And  the  secret  is  of  a  will  divinely 
educated  and  divinely  reinforced.  That  a  will  thus 
educated  and  reinforced  is  possible  is  a  sure  result  of 
religious  experience.  Fletcher  of  Madeley  in  his  later 
years  was  known  for  his  seraphic  temper.  A  friend 
once  remarked  to  him  that  he  supposed  he  was  born 
with  it.  **  On  the  contrary,"  said  Fletcher,  "  in 
earlier  life  I  was  the  subject  of  most  furious  passions." 
And  what  was  wrought  in  him  can  be  wrought  in  you 
and  me.  The  divine  life  in  us  is  a  life  whose  reach  is 
to  our  farthest  bounds.  Under  that  sway  the  soul, 
while  responsive  to  all  life's  multitudinous  movement, 
keeps  to  its  centre,  knows  its  home  ;  and  when  the 
storm  rages  at  its  fiercest  without,  turns  to  its  inward, 
unassailable  Rest,  secure  there  of  finding  warmth  and 
shelter. 


W.  SPEAIGHT  AND  SONS,  PRINTERS,  FETTER  LANE,  E.C. 


